LOOT
A novel with a background of
present-day political chicanery.
This is the first novel by T. H.
nder, Dean of Southern news-
olumnists and the one man
Southland who knows the
of political trickery, political
corruption and governmental graft
and wastefulness.
Mr. Alexander paints a stirring
novel against the background of
present-day politics, with scenes laid
in the South he knows so well. We
see here clearly why taxes are con-
stantly increasing, and why cost of
government is constantly gr^-
by leaps and bounds.

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The low
to •*
p'" 1/ to a climax
'~"r »o"-
its fascination, but the
afford you through
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Copyright 1932
Southwest Press


I


2
LOOT
vated to the gubernatorial chair and now yearned to
be in the United States Senate.
The thought brought the Colonel back on his track
of memory. He surveyed his domain with a smack of
satisfaction as he sat smoking in a cane-bottomed
chair on the front porch of Traveler's Rest, a name
given it by the long hunters and other wayfarers
more than a hundred years ago.
It was April and in the velvet Southern air was
the surety of spring and the promise of summer.
Behind him was the home of his fathers, a two-story
log house long since covered with clapboards. Behind
the top clapboards of the first story, his father had
told him, were portholes through which pioneer
Steeles had upon occasions thrust their long rifles
to shoot at marauding Indians or savage river pirates.
The storms of almost a century and a half had not
shaken the house, nor had the buffetings of sixty
years weather-beaten the man. Sitting there in the
gathering dusk, there appeared indeed a curious simi-
larity between the man and the house, as though each
was intended for the other. There was something of
solidity and stability in both. Neither the man nor
the house was young, but both presented the lean
grayness of a veteran soldier of many campaigns who
has passed through unscarred, and who, still in his
prime, bears the polish and gloss of the years. To
man and house the years had been kind.
Sprawled in the comfortable chair, pipe filled with
tangy home-grown tobacco, a pitcher of cool spring
water at his elbow on the scrubbed pine porch table,


LOOT
3
Colonel Steele, with half-closed eyes, seemed ob-
livious to the scene about him.
At his right a locust tree put on her wedding gar-
ments of fragrant white blossoms. Across the winding
gravel drive to the pike, behind the box bushes, a
small flock of sheep grazed on the lawn, stirred to
anxious head-liftings at intervals as their bellwether
moved to greener spots of the bluegrass. From the
stables in back a horse whinnied, and from a more
distant spot on the plantation came the put-put of a
tractor plow as it turned the rich black soil. Lean,
tall and gray, the Colonel seemed to fit in this rural
environment.
Apparently, however, it was not his immediate sur-
roundings on which the Colonel pondered, but rather
that broader domain of which he was the acknowl-
edged political leader—the State. It stretched from
the mountains to the river, seven hundred miles of
empire, rich alike in agriculture and commerce, in
mining and manufacturing.
More than fifty years ago, he recalled with a smile,
his father had told him of the great figures of the
past, of the Presidents his State had furnished the
Union j of speeches made long ago by orators of the
old South in days of high tradition; of issues that
once were alive and vital in a day when issues counted.
Long before he himself had entered politics his
father, a Colonel in the Confederate army, had told
him how he came to name the child after Gideon
Welles, who had defended Andrew Johnson in the
days when it seemed that the Nation might clash


LOOT
S
years of effort had been a gallon of white corn whis-
key, the gift of a hill man who had found himself
at odds with the United States government on the
matter of operating a still without an internal reve-
nue license. Through the young lawyer's eloquence
and audacious persistence this lanky defendant had
escaped the toils of the Federal Court and, whiskey
being the client's sole mode of self-expression, he
had lugged a jug of the illicit beverage to his lawyer
on the following Saturday when he had come to town
to buy sugar for his still.
Pardons he had secured by the scores from various
Governors on this and that plea—once by walking
six barefooted children to the State House in a De-
cember snow to appear with a convict's wife who had
come to plead for her husband's liberty. He had not
known at the time they were not her children, but he
did know that their bare feet were not foreign to the
snow, for they had never worn shoes. But it brought
tears and clemency from a soft-hearted Governor,
though it had not put money in the lawyer's pocket.
He had secured pensions and other governmental
favors by the hundreds. Not an old soldier in the
county but who knew young Steele on sight after he
had been practising a month. There was manifestly
no gold and little prestige in securing a meager State
pension for some old-timer who babbled of having
bivouacked with his father on Missionary Ridge or at
Shiloh, nor in having some needy widow of a soldier
appointed coal oil inspector for the county on the


6
LOOT
recommendation of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy.
To the young lawyer at that time politics was a
fascinating mystery. It seemed to be mainly speaking
and cheering and parading and band-playing. Cam-
paigns were decided on their issues, coupled with the
relative merits of the candidates. Paid workers were
unknown and the most successful political leaders
were so poor that their frayed claw hammer coats at-
tested their integrity. A candidate who spent money
on his election, even if he was one of the county of-
ficers who were paid on the fee basis and whose re-
turns were reputed to be large, was ostracized socially
as well as politically. The State capitol, the county
courthouses and the other temples of government
throughout the State were models of Jeffersonian
simplicity.
When the old war horse who had served as Gover-
nor of the State during the Civil War—sometimes
moving his seat of government two jumps ahead of
Federal bayonets—came to Steeleville on his cam-
paign for the United States Senate, it was almost as
though the Lord of Hosts in person had come down
from Sinai to deliver the tablets of stone. On the old
political leader had descended the mantle of all the
great and legendary ante-bellum figures. He was
credited with marvelous and prodigious feats of
statesmanship. He became the very symbol of the
rectitude of the political leaders of the unsophisti-
cated era. He carried every precinct in the county,
some of them unanimously, and in one rural box,


LOOT
—
Cheatham, where a man had dared to oppose the
old war horse, the indignant citizens captured the lone
voter by night and rode him out of town on a rail,
tastefully dressed in a coat of tar and feathers.
After him had come other candidates—a General
in the Confederate army, an old Governor who had
sat in Congress as Grover Cleveland's leader in the
Lower House, and another who fiddled his way into
place and power, a rollicking man without guile and
as honest as the sunshine. Colonel Steele remembered
Mr
pleasantly the deference and consideration they had
all shown him because after his second year at law he
had entered politics and begun to be successful in a
small way.
Bit by bit, Colonel Steele reconstructed in his mind
the events leading up to his first political triumph
so long ago. The Steele plantation, on which the
young lawyer lived in luxury despite his lean law
practice, had been at that time a mile from the little
county seat town of Steeleville, which was named
after his great-grandfather. Now it was on the out-
skirts of town, as the residential district had straggled
out the new highway leading from the capital city of
the State.
There was at that time a bitter fight being waged
for the possession of the county seat between Steele-
ville and its municipal rival, Cheatham, twelve miles
down the river, a mushroom town which had sprung
up in the seventies from a river pirate's nest of an
earlier period.


8
LOOT
Steeleville was an old and settled town. It was old
when Major General Jackson and his riflemen
marched south on their way to New Orleans to meet
the British at Chalmette Plain, near New Orleans.
Through it, then a stockaded village with a block-
house, had gone the long riflemen to fight the Brit-
ish at King's Mountain, in the War of the Revolu-
tion. About it had grown a tradition of landed aris-
tocracy, of leisure and wealth. In the forties and
fifties the largest slave owners in the State lived
around Steeleville.
As if in hot resentment of the white man who has
to compete with negro labor, Cheatham had sprung
into being. It was first a port of call for river pirates
and a hideaway from the land side of bushwhackers
and bandits who infested the land during and after
the lawless days of the Civil War. A watering trough
marked the spot where a shell had landed from one
of General Grant's gunboats as it steamed up the
river. Ironically, the town had been named for a
Confederate General. It had grown and prospered,
to become the mecca on Saturdays and first Mondays
of the small farmers, especially the tenant and share-
cropper classes, who thronged over its sun-baked
streets and into its general merchandise stores,
farmers' supply houses, cotton gins and tobacco ware-
houses in such numbers that their favor threatened
the commercial supremacy of the older town. Cheath-
am's trade territory gradually had enlarged until it
came almost to Steeleville's doors. The small farmers
were its militant champions. They seemed to sense a


LOOT
9
democratic, plain man's freedom in Cheatham's
squalid places of business that did not exist in the
more costly and handsome business houses of Steele-
ville. In politics, it was always pulling against Steele-
ville, whose leaders often remarked that every new
political wind would find ready sails in Cheatham,
which went militantly Populite in the nineties and
later came to rest under the umbrageous doctrines of
a hooded secret order.
And so, as Colonel Steele was about to enter poli-
tics, Cheatham was threatening the very political su-
premacy and commercial life of the older town by an
ambitious movement to remove the seat of govern-
ment and with it the courthouse, tangible evidence of
the existence and majesty of government. That the
movement was dangerous to the older town was
known to all the county's leaders, for the fanatical
devotion of a majority of the electorate of the county
to the squalid little town on the river was a respected
tradition to the gentlemen who lived by votes. And
the movement required only a majority vote in the
County Court to be crowned with success.
On the day the young Colonel was thinking of
casting aside his cocoon and emerging as a full-
fledged political butterfly, there had come to his law
office in the row of one-story buildings dedicated to
the town's attorneys a delegation of several leading
citizens. There was Major Ephraim Tuttle, who had
served in the Confederate army with his father. Be-
hind him he herded Judge Jeff D. Turner, Judge of


LOOT
11
in the County Court and so swing the courthouse
matter. So the member of the County Court from
the county-at-large is mighty, mighty important,"
finished the Major.
"So it seems," the young lawyer had commented.
"But what do you wish me to do about it?"
"Why, we want you to run for member from the
county-at-large," said the Major in some surprise.
"We figger that it wouldn't do to put up any of the
old-timers who have been identified so closely with
Steeleville. We figger that you, being the son of old
Colonel Steele and having done a mighty lot of
favors for folks all over the county and being your-
self a farmer, ought to pull through. At least, you
haven't got any enemies. We'd run anybody out of
Steeleville who'd vote agin you. You ought to win
and if you don't we'll lose the courthouse."
"That's sho'," agreed the County Judge, nodding
his head sagely, "we're in a tight."
In the quiet of this April afternoon on the front
porch, as he sat to consider the coming State cam-
paign, the old Colonel thought of the battle of that
autumn, almost forty years before.
What a figure he must have cut! He had almost
believed in fairies and Santa Claus. He remembered
his flamboyant campaign, his frequent oratorical
references to Thomas Jefferson and the Constitution
of the United States. He had been verbose on the
stump on almost every subject of government, save
his intention of voting to keep the courthouse at
Steeleville. In the old-fashioned way he had waved


12
LOOT
the flag and praised the Bible, paid a glowing tribute
to the Stars and Bars and the Cross of St. Andrew's,
gone to the picnics and kissed the babies, hobnobbed
with the ministers and drank moonshine liquor with
the illicit distillers in the hill districts.
But he had won with more than a hundred votes to
spare and the courthouse remained in Steeleville.
The meetings of the County Court that winter had
been to him a schoolroom in politics. They were held
always on the first Monday in the month, which was
the county's great trading day. First Monday in
Steeleville presented a bucolic carnival worth seeing.
Countrymen ranging from colored ginseng diggers to
mule traders came to town. Sometimes more than a
thousand mules were to be seen on the public square.
During the Boer War, he remembered, the British
sent mule buyers to this country to buy mules at
Steeleville, as the American Government itself had
since done during the World War. On this curb mar-
ket also changed hands tons of leaf tobacco, hundreds
of bales of cotton and thousands of bags of corn, oats
and wheat.
For the first time he began to realize that the cogs
do not move in the political machine of their own
accord, nor for glory. The bands that played the
stirring marches performed only for pay and not for
love of country, while even the leaders of the march-
ers in the torchlight parades were sometimes paid
workers. Only occasionally, he found, and even those
days were beginning to wane, did a great leader step
forward and offer for public office on great principles


LOOT
13
and real issues. Crusading was poor business politi-
cally.
Greater than all the tumult and shouting, the
marching and red fire, he discovered, was the solid
and business-like rule of doing a political favor and
thereby storing up a political debt to be repaid in the
future when needed. Translated into common lan-
guage, as Judge Turner interpreted it for him on the
first day of court, it was "you scratch my back and
I'll scratch yours"—the old-time logrolling of the
pioneers. There was a tradition that one successful
politician had a fixed rule of filing requests made on
him for favors which he granted and then, when he
himself wished a favor, he wrote the request for it
on the back of the original letter! It served as a re-
minder that the promissory note in the bank of poli-
tics was due.
As member of the County Court from the coun-
ty-at-large, Colonel Steele recalled, he had been
chairman ex-ofiicio of the court's steering committee,
which virtually dictated the policy and routine of the
court. As such he had been chiefly instrumental in
the court's voting to grant a franchise to a new turn-
pike company which was given the right to repair the
pike roads and cash in on them by erecting toll gates.
The turnpike company numbered among its stock-
holders some of the State's important citizens and
these were to remain Colonel Steele's most loyal
friends. He had later defeated a movement to raise
the assessment for taxation of one of the two rail-
roads crossing the county and this had created a large


14
LOOT
obligation. He had done numerous and sundry favors
for many others and by the end of his term as mem-
ber of the County Court he was its acknowledged
leader and was forging ahead to new worlds to
conquer.
It was an easy step to win the election as County
Attorney the following year. He found it a field in
which he could easily extend his influence and retain
his leadership over the court. Envious politicians were
saying by then that Gid Steele carried the county
around with him in his vest pocket. The County At-
torney was the legal adviser to the court and the
designated authority to draw its resolutions, fran-
chises and other legal papers.
In two more years Colonel Steele was sent to the
State Senate as the representative of his district which
was composed of his own and two adjoining counties.
There he accomplished the first of several bold politi-
cal coups that finally came to make his name known
over the State as the synonym for audacity.
He first convinced Major Tuttle and other Steele-
ville business and political leaders that it would be
impossible at the next election to elect a County Court
favorable to the old county seat. Eventually, he
argued, it was certain that the young and vigorous
community of Cheatham would obtain the courthouse.
There was already talk in the backwoods districts
of removing it by force to Cheatham, a common prac-
tice in many sparsely settled counties in the South and
West in the old days. They could not have actually
removed the graceful old stone courthouse from


LOOT
IS
Steeleville, but they could have taken the county
records and fired the building. Therefore, the young
political leader argued, it would be a graceful com-
promise that would save the courthouse to Steeleville
to establish by a bill in the Legislature two county
seat towns with two courthouses, the second to go to
Cheatham.
Carried away by the force of his logic and con-
vinced that half a loaf is better than none, the Steele-
ville leaders had finally agreed to this plan. He drew
the bill with care so that dissenters among the Steele-
ville irreconcilables could not attack it successfully in
the courts. It became a law in a week, slipping
through as a local measure on the greased skids of
legislative courtesy. The member of the House of
Representatives from the county was complacent to
the scheme after Major Tuttle had approved it, and
for any other members of the Senate or House to
have attacked the bill would have invited reprisals
when they attempted to enact any of their own pet
measures. It passed without even a roll call.
After that, Colonel Steele was invincible in the
county. Cheatham gave him a banquet at which he
was oratorically thanked until long after midnight
and the grumblers at Steeleville soon forgot their
criticisms of his compromise. As he sat on his porch
reviewing his life he observed to himself shrewdly
that politics, like life, is full of compromises and
sometimes the best compromiser gets the best out
of both. What were the Nation's greatest statesmen


16
LOOT
for a quarter of a century before the Civil War but
compromisers?
From the State Senate, the climb to place and
power of Gideon Welles Steele was easier and easier
as his lust for prestige and influence increased. As-
sured of a comfortable livelihood from his ancestral
plantation, he threw himself into political life. He
was recognized as a coming man and his tradition
grew. If his friends boasted that Gid Steele never
lost a political fight and his enemies hurled at him
the charge that he was building up a political ma-
chine, he let both say what they would. Both helped
him. He believed that a tradition of invincibility was
always worth as much as twenty-five per cent of the
total vote in any precinct because so many voters
want to ride the winner. He recalled many politicians
of his acquaintance who held on to power because
they had been able to build up a myth that they
could deliver votes. Many of them held in their or-
bits and revolved as little satellites in the political
solar system because there clung to them a tradition
and a fable of power—over-ripe apples that re-
mained on the limb because no one had tried to
knock them off.
With Colonel Steele's new contacts in the State
Senate and the almost unanimous backing in his home
county, it was absurdly easy for him to win the elec-
tion as prosecuting attorney of his judicial circuit,
which was composed of six counties. Two of his op-
ponents withdrew before the election and the third
quit the actual canvass a week before the election.


18
LOOT
the sessions of the House. In fact, he rarely attended
unless asked by the party whip and then only to vote
with his party and maintain his regularity. Although
his own career had been characterized by much craft
and cunning, the devious indirections of the Con-
gress irritated him no little, while the operation of
the government bureaus positively infuriated him.
Furthermore, his party was not in power in the
Nation and it seemed, as he said, that it was devilish
uncertain whether it would ever elect another Presi-
dent. He had little or no patronage as a member of
the minority and few favors to bestow. He felt him-
self shelved and retired in the Nation's capital city,
his star of destiny stilled. In his heart also he felt,
like Caesar, that he would rather be first in that
little Iberian village than second at Rome. His home
town postmastership was passed out to a Steeleville
nobody by a Federal patronage referee who lived in
another part of the State and whom the Congress-
man had never seen. As a member of the county
court back home, he had meditated gloomily one day
in his quarters in the House office building, he had
more patronage and power and more things to trade
off for more power.
The great decision that influenced his life was
made while he was a member of a congressional
junketing committee to investigate charges of illegal
expenditures of money by a congressional candidate
of a city machine in an Eastern city. This luckless
patriot, who had committed the unpardonable sin
of being found out, had such a thirst for re-election


LOOT
19
that his organization had gone out and practically
bought up the election. He had not inquired the
origin of the funds which he so prodigally squan-
dered on election day, and the committee probed
until it learned that they came from exceedingly
dubious sources, especially from large business in-
terests which had a direct interest in pending legisla-
tion. Thus business paid for what it wanted in cam-
paign funds and got value received.
It was Colonel Steele's first taste of urban politics.
He was mildly shocked at the revelations, but pro-
foundly interested. Gradually the great idea was born
in his fertile mind. It was the idea that a political
organization modeled after the city machines which
operated in the heavy centers of population could
function quite as efficiently in the rural and semi-
urban sections of the country. Why, it could sweep
everything before it. It could control States quite as
easily as it controlled towns and cities.
But the Jeffersonian simplicity of government in
the rural sections seemed to prohibit the usual re-
wards of urban politics. His State had long since
prohibited the liquor traffic and the profitable influ-
ence of the saloon in politics had been removed. The
entire cost of State government of his own State
totaled only a million or so dollars a year. From such
simplicity could not be drawn the sinews of war to
nurture a state-wide political machine. It was impos-
sible.
Through the dull days when the political dirty
linen of the great city was washed before the eyes of


LOOT 21
ously demand miles and miles of better roads on
which to run their little cars. Already in some sec-
tions of the country the hard surface roads were com-
ing, as smooth as city streets, and soon they would
have to be placed everywhere.
Road building, he saw in a flash, being a state func-
tion, would increase the cost of state government by
tens of millions annually. All the other benefits of
government would increase proportionately. The full
dinner pail and prosperity might become state cam-
paign slogans as well as national shibboleths. Inci-
dentally, a state political machine could fatten on the
spoils of increased expenditures and increased offices,
taking its percentage from the political kitty as its
game was played on the political poker table. Having
looked to Washington for political favors, the peo-
ple would now look to the state capitols, the new cen-
ter of power. Why, a political revolution was in
prospect, a swing back from Federal centralization
to State control. Bah! What was Washington but a
place of stuffed shirts and office seekers, wallowing
in red tape, bungling through, thinking it had power
where here lay more potential power than was
dreamed of in the days before centralization of gov-
ernment became fashionable.
That night, with characteristic audacity, Gideon
Welles Steele resigned his seat in Congress and from
the observation platform of the Capital City Limited
watched the lights of the Nation's capitol disappear
over the horizon with the first real thrill he had ex-
perienced since his election to the county court. He


22
LOOT
was going home to the sticks to live among rural peo-
ple who spoke his language and thought his thoughts,
to give a new meaning to their old shibboleth of
state's rights—to build a state-wide political machine.
And tonight as he sat on his front porch in the
gathering gloom, some forty years after his entrance
in politics, he thought with some satisfaction that he
had done a good job of it. He had become the undis-
puted political leader of the State who tempered des-
tiny to his ends and made or unmade stars of the po-
litical firmament.
Behind the box bushes and the crape myrtle, the
old Colonel was brought suddenly to earth.
"Daddy, it's almost supper time; you have just
time to dress," said Julia Steele, her book finished.
"John's running over to dine with us."
Even in the gloom, Colonel Steele could read the
sparkling eyes of his daughter. Yes, there was some-
thing between his daughter and John Ambler, the
son of his old friend. It was well j he was a good boy
and some day he might be Governor of the State.
The thought pleased the Colonel so that he chuckled
aloud, and Julia blushed until old Shad appeared in
the darkened doorway in his white coat and held the
door open for them. The Colonel went in to dress for
the night meal, sniffing like a war horse from afar
another political battle on the morrow.


26
LOOT
Miss Julia regarded the heavily-loaded table al-
most ruefully. It amounted, she thought to herself,
to almost a vulgar display of food. The Colonel's
dinners and luncheons were famous. Also they were
reliable thermometers of the state of the campaign.
If simple, they indicated that matters of State were
moving evenly. If elaborate, they pointed to a com-
ing crisis in political affairs. Today old Shad had, by
order of the Colonel, opened wide the smokehouse
and larder to do his record proud as a kitchen execu-
tive. To an array of silver platters of quail on toast,
fried spring chicken and baked country ham, he was
adding a huge dish of hog jowl and greens.
"Ah," said Governor Pitts in his mellow voice,
"hog jowl and greens! With such food to nourish its
man-power, the South will never listen to the Com-
munists and Bolsheviks."
For five minutes he eulogized the homely food
while the guests listened politely and Julia Steele ap-
peared slightly bored. She remembered it as part of
a set speech which he often used to tickle the
rural vote. He had a school speech, a highway speech,
a public health speech and a few other set addresses
for special occasions. The Colonel censored his ut-
terances so closely that the Governor rarely deviated
from the manuscripts which he had memorized. The
thought made Julia send a small dart at the execu-
tive.
"We had your name up before the Women's Bi-
partisan Political League this morning, Governor,"
she remarked sweetly.


LOOT
27
"Pleasantly, I hope, Miss Julia?" asked the Gov-
ernor, sensing a compliment.
"The women want to know how you would stand
on the Muscle Shoals legislation if elected to the
United States Senate," replied Julia. The Colonel
glanced at her sharply, his fork poised in midair.
She was treading on dangerous ground.
"Well, my dear young lady," said the Governor,
"I haven't been elected to the Senate yet."
"And before you are elected the women, especial-
ly the farm women, want to know how you stand on
the Shoals bill," pursued Julia sweetly.
The Governor flushed slightly. It seemed doubt-
ful whether he had ever thought of the matter be-
fore.
"I'd take counsel of my friends, of course," he
said, "and expect to be guided largely by their ad-
vice." He knew he was on firm ground now. He shot
a tentative glance at Judge Griffin, the keeper of the
royal conscience on utility matters. Kelly caught the
glance and winked at the Colonel.
Colonel Steele, always the smiling diplomat,
jumped into the breach gallantly.
"To keep down opposition to your senatorial am-
bition," began the Colonel, "we must pick our can-
didate to succeed you as Governor with great care.
If we give our friends a good candidate for Gover-
nor upon whom they may unite and who seems capa-
ble of carrying out your great policies, my idea is
that we can win the senatorial nomination easily—
perhaps without opposition. But if we should lose the


28
LOOT
governorship, we have killed the goose that laid the
golden egg; we have made it so that we won't elect
any senators or congressmen. Please don't misunder-
stand me. The important thing is the governorship.
To an organization such as ours, senatorial seats are
luxuries while governorships are as necessary as air
and water. State government, with the expended
highway and educational program, is costing about
fifty millions per year in states of our population and
area, and we employ some twenty thousand people—
perhaps ten times more state jobs than federal jobs
in our State."
"Senators don't get us nothing," said Kelly short-
ly, "especially if they don't sing the same tune as
the national administration. And we'll elect another
President from our party about the time hell freezes
over."
Julia Steele, whose eyes of love saw in her father
a paragon of political virtue, heard this bit of politi-
cal realism with a faint smile. She was accustomed to
the foibles of her father's guests.
"But you can at least count on the friends of my
administration at the capital for hundreds of thou-
sands of votes," protested Governor Pitts.
"Certainly," said the Colonel soothingly. "You
hold the key to the situation. The senatorship is a
matter of easy solution, once we get our gubernatorial
campaign untangled. Suppose we get down to busi-
ness on it. I reckon we are all agreed that our candi-
date for Governor must be announced and in the field
by early next week?"


LOOT
29
There was a chorus of assent. The Colonel was
noted for quick action, once he got started.
"Then he must be selected by tonight and we had
just as well start the weeding out process now. The
opposition already has a dangerous candidate in the
field, and my reports indicate that he has been mak-
ing some progress. As I recall our previous confer-
ence, we are now down to three names: Judge
Ambrister, Congressman Jenkins and young John
Ambler, my neighbor up the pike towards Steeleville.
Some of you gentlemen have final reports on these
prospective candidates. What is your final judgment
on Ambrister, Judge Griffin?"
Judge Griffin, a tall old man with the ascetic and
scholarly face of a typical chancery lawyer whose
skin was almost as sallow as the bindings of his law
books, pursed his lips judicially.
"I have examined Judge Ambrister's record, po-
litical and personal, with great care, Colonel," said
Judge Griffin carefully. "There is not a blot against
either. He is a party man who is always amenable to
party leadership. He did not bolt even during the
independent movement some years ago, when he
knew that the independents would elect a Supreme
Court before which he had to practice. He is a con-
vincing speaker, a good debater and has a fine legal
mind. He would make a fine candidate, in my judg-
ment. He is friendly to—ah—hum—he is fair and
just to our interests."
"Ambrister is a sort of high-brow, but I reckon
he'll do," grumbled Kelly. "I think our crowd could


30
LOOT
elect a baboon with the organization we've got. Just
pick somebody who don't beat his wife and can keep
out of jail during the campaign and we'll put him
over."
The patrician Judge Griffin permitted himself a
glance at Kelly that resembled a glare. Colonel Steele
flipped a paper across the table to the lawyer arid
said, while the other was adjusting his glasses:
"Judge, I really owe you an apology for having
started you on a wild goose chase after Ambrister.
I did not have that information when we first began
to consider him."
Consumed by curiosity, Kelly leaned over Judge
Griffin's shoulder. The paper was a clipping from the
Memphis Commercial Appeal of almost two years
before. It was a news story relating how Judge Am-
brister had helped organize a state society to join in
a movement against the Eighteenth Amendment.
Griffin read it carefully and handed it back with a
gesture of amazement tinged with disgust.
"I'm afraid that settles Judge Ambrister," he com-
mented with a sigh. "We could never elect a wet in
this State, even if we were foolhardy enough to buck
public opinion with such a candidate. To say the least,
it would make the fight unnecessarily hard."
"Thumbs down on Ambrister then," said Colonel
Steele quickly, to relieve the old lawyer's evident
chagrin. "Majors, what's your final judgment on
Jenkins?"
"I spent last week in his congressional district," re-
plied Majors promptly. "You know Jenkins has been


LOOT
31
in Congress almost twenty years and has opposition
this year. They tackle the congressmen hard for a
few years after they are elected. If the M. C. can de-
feat opposition the first two or three elections they
let him slide by for fifteen or eighteen years. Then
the ambitious young politicians begin tackling him
again. I think Jenkins will pull through this race by
a small margin, but the district leaders are after him,
and Jenkins knows it. They want a messenger boy in
Congress and Jenkins hasn't measured to that. I real-
ly think the old man has an idea he's a statesman. He
has enough political sense to know that his political
sun is about to set as Congressman and they'll 'get'
him in the next election. He is anxious to seek new
fields and make the race for Governor. He could get
a larger maj ority in his congressional district running
for Governor than he could get as a congressional
candidate, as his district has never furnished the
State a Governor and they're mighty clannish and
proud of their home folks up in the mountains—
seems they criticize their folks themselves, but won't
let anyone else do it. To say the least, he knows the
ropes and wouldn't involve us in any bad situations.
Of course, we could elect him."
"We can elect almost anyone with our organiza-
tion," commented Colonel Steele. "The point is to
pick someone we can elect with the least trouble and
expense. Kelly, what do you think of Jenkins?"
"He's all right, but the first plank in his platform
is that he believes in Santa Claus," said Kelly cyni-
cally. "He's served eight or nine terms in Congress


32
LOOT
and never has found out what it's all about. He never
has organized his district and he wins simply be-
cause he's an old hand at the bellows and the people
don't like to change. He's too old-fashioned. He
thinks the people still elect men on their merits. Be-
sides, didn't he bolt the party once?"
"Yes, he bolted," said Smith, contributing his
first bit of information to the conference. "He
turned independent when the party declared for lo-
cal option on liquor and he was for state-wide prohi-
bition."
"A bolt in a good enough cause," commented Col-
onel Steele who was politically bone dry in spite of
his pre-war cellar, "but a bolt is a bolt and they never
come back. The old family mare that runs away can
never be trusted again. What do you gentlemen
think?"
There was a long wrangle over the matter, but
when it simmered down only Majors was defending
the erring Congressman. He argued with some heat
that the party bolt took place so long ago that the
statute of limitations ought to bar it. Besides, he
urged, the bolters were in the majority and over-
threw the old party on the liquor question.
Judge Griffin listened closely to the debate and
threw into it the cold logic of his intellect. It was
easy to see that the Judge sensed in Congressman Jen-
kins an independence of mind which might bode ill
for his power company which was seeking dam sites
all over the South and especially in the State. Majors
was outvoted, but the old Colonel took no part in it,


LOOT
35
his private life. They found he didn't even drink,
and he is too busy with his law practice and his plan-
tation to waste time with women"
There was high color in Julia Steele's cheeks.
"but he's never had any political experience
and God save us if that old rabble rouser, who is al-
ready running for Governor, gets him in a joint de-
bate. Besides, he fought the anti-evolution bill. The
anti-evolution bills in all the Southern states were
fool laws, of course, but you didn't see the practical
politicians fighting 'em, did you? Not on your life. A
good many folks have come to regard him as an ag-
nostic, if not an infidel"
"That's passed and forgotten now," said Colonel
Steele. "Most of us recognize the mistake of that
sort of legislation now, though I am myself a re-
ligious fundamentalist."
But Kelly rambled on. Ambler, he said, was a high-
hat lawyer with a swallow-tailed-coat mind. He
would regard the average specimen of the great un-
washed electorate from the tall and uncut timbers
much as a housewife would look on a chinch-bug
which she had just discovered on her clean bed linen.
Ambler was always rattling off after some lost cause
in politics and wouldn't stancLhitched.
In this rasping monologue, Judge Griffin joined.
He, too, feared Ambler. The basis of his fear was the
much-mooted question of the hydroelectric develop-
ment which his company proposed at Harpeth Falls.
Ambler, he said, was an aristocrat, a throw-back to
the Old South who regarded the progress of the New


36
LOOT
South as not an altogether unmixed blessing. There
was no telling, the judge said, what the young fool
might do as Governor of the State. All save Julia
and the old Colonel joined in the talk against Am-
bler.
The Colonel waited for the shock of the storm to
pass. He had trapped his friends into what was be-
ginning to appear as certain support for young Am-
bler and he was diplomat enough to try to make them
like it. He spoke with more than usual persuasion.
"I think John Ambler has marked talents for pub-
lic service," said the Colonel smoothly. "He is
really a brilliant young chap and perhaps his greatest
fault is his ability to see both sides of a question for,
as the negro in the old story said when about to be
hung, 'we don't want justice.' In politics we want
blind partisanship. John Ambler's grandfather and
my father fought together in the Confederate army.
He comes from a good family and is beyond the
breath of scandal. A man can't boast of his family's
gentility in a political campaign, but it is a fact that
the average Southern voter, especially the women,
consider such things. He belongs to a church that is
numerous enough to give him substantial support and
that's not an element to be overlooked. He is a fine
speaker, a lawyer, just a little past thirty years of
"Two years and three months past thirty," thought
Julia Steele to herself.
"——and our rural people look to the law for
their candidates for high office. He is also a farmer,


38
LOOT
been able to overawe the power advocates with such
a showing of strength from the rural solons that the
power lobby had been fearful of bringing the ques-
tion to a direct issue. In the last Legislature Gover-
nor Pitts, with his mind intent on the coming sena-
torial race, had not actually balked but he had not
supported the bill with full force of his adminis-
tration.
"Perhaps I can answer that question," interposed
Julia quickly. "John has a summer cabin near the
falls that his grandfather built many years ago. You
remember, father, that we used to spend the sum-
mers there, too. I have seen John sit and brood over
the loveliness of the falls for hours. He regards the
place with such veneration that I don't believe he
will ever consent to a power development there."
"Pm not so sure of that," said the Colonel, placid-
ly. "I've been talking to him a good deal about it late-
ly. He's not exactly settled in his own mind about
the rights of the public in the matter—as to whether
the advantages of developing the State's much-
needed power program outweigh the beauty of the
falls, for all the arguments of the conservationists.
But Ambler is ambitious politically and a man who
has ambition gnawing at him like the Spartan wolf is
likely to be a man who'll strain a point to meet the
views of his friends and supporters. I think we have
logic on our side and I am saying that it is my belief
that Ambler will come to our views. His mind is the
most logical I ever saw. What about him, Judge,
what's your final judgment?"


40
LOOT
"You're the boss," said Kelly. "It's okay with
me."
"My friends at the capitol will support anyone
you prefer," said Governor Pitts, "though naturally
they expect me to go to the Senate."
"I wouldn't make a political trade with the Angel
Gabriel," said the Colonel almost coldly, "but we'll
get to that race in time. We've got to show some
speed on this matter now. You gentlemen all meet
me at the Southern Club near the statehouse tonight.
I'll have Ambler with me. Here, Julia, have Shad
telephone this list of men over the State to meet me
at the club tonight. And telephone the steward to
reserve a private dining room with dinner for
eighteen."
In a rush of characteristic energy, the campaign
was about to start. The Colonel was donning his
fighting clothes.
"Hell," complained Kelly to the Governor, as
they climbed in their waiting motor car, "why didn't
the old man tell us at first that he was aiming to run
John Ambler for Governor?"
The Governor laughed complacently, but on the
steps of the old home Julia Steele was frowning in
the dark. She knew John Ambler better than any-
one else did, and she sensed in his independent mind
grave trouble for her father.


CHAPTER III
The Southern Club resembles nothing so much
as an old-fashioned corner cupboard set in the midst
of modern furniture. Entirely surrounded by sky-
scrapers and tall hotels, the old club house occupies
a frontage on busy King William Street worth a
prince's ransom. It is built of brick which was pressed
by slave labor.
Setting far back from the street in a clump of
evergreens, the club has a broad porch under a mas-
sive roof supported by white columns. The porch is
dotted with easy chairs. From the center of the
second story above the main entrance juts a balcony
of ornamental iron work that some forgotten Tubal-
cain wrought by hand with infinite patience and skill.
Beneath the balcony is an immense white colonial
door, the main entrance to the club. From it runs
a broad hallway. On either side are large reading and
card rooms, each done in white woodwork with large
fireplaces for wood and surmounted by mantelpieces
of Italian marble and large mirrors. On the walls
hang paintings of the Presidents which the South
has contributed to the Union, portraits of Confeder-
ate military chieftains and statesmen of ante-bellum
days. Many of these are autographed, as the club it-
41


42
LOOT
self is more than a hundred years old. To the rear
of the hall near the clerk's desk hangs an illuminated
portrait of the sage of Monticello, from whom the
capital city takes its name of Jeffersonville.
On the second floor are two large dining rooms,
flanked by a number of small private dining places.
On the third floor is the ballroom. On quiet nights
the little negroes who serve as the club's pages and
bus boys imagine the old dance hall is ghostly with the
twinkling feet and the coquettishly waving fans of
a century of shining-eyed Jeffersonville belles. On
every hand are evidences of a time when life was
calm and unhurried amidst a social system almost
feudal in its magnificence.
It was not seven o'clock when Colonel Steele's car,
proudly chauffeured by young Shad, the grandson of
the old butler, came rapidly up the winding chert
driveway under the magnolias and stopped at the
carriage porch. Beside the grinning boy on the front
seat sat his grandfather, a sedate picture of African
dignity. The old butler had never missed a dinner
given by the Colonel for more than a quarter of a
century. It was his proud boast that he had served
Presidents of the United States as well as Senators,
Governors, Congressmen and the lower fauna and
flora of the nation's political life. Tonight he was
proud that he was to have a hand in launching on a
life of political glory young John Ambler whom he
had jostled on his knee as a babe back in Steeleville.
The Colonel disembarked leisurely, his broad Stet-
son hat set at a rakish angle, cane in hand and a rose


LOOT
43
from his old-fashioned garden in buttonhole. Behind
him with a light step came the Honorable John Am-
bler of Steeleville.
Even as he stood beside the commanding Colonel,
John Ambler's vivid personality was not dimmed. It
gripped even old Shad as he paused an instant to look
at the tall young man whom he had loved since boy-
hood.
Perhaps the most characteristic thing about John
Ambler was his smile. He smiled the widest when
hardest pressed, whether in play, in law or in politics.
He stood more than six feet tall. He had an unruly
thatch of blond hair and blue eyes. Although thirty-
two, he seemed years younger. The old Colonel made
a mental note that Ambler was almost too young to
run for Governor. It was, he thought in a flash, be-
cause of the look of eternal youth in his blue eyes
and the carefree smile.
Blue, the Colonel ruminated, as they ascended the
steps to the club entrance, is the color of adventure
and daring. Most great adventurers and leaders and
men of action have blue eyes. Brown eyes burn the
midnight oil and lay the plans of empire, but blue
eyes carry the sword. Ambler's eyes, blue-gray under
the light from the antique lamp in the carriage drive,
seemed to peer into the future with confidence and
easy assurance. They were the most striking things
about his more than six feet of bulk, which was a
legacy of the varsity football field and the training
camps of the A. E. F. They were the eyes of lead-
ership the world over.


44
LOOT
In the vestibule, Colonel Steele drew the younger
man close.
"We will meet my friends and advisers from all
over the State," he said in a low voice. "They have
already agreed to accept my judgment as to your
candidacy. Our conversation this afternoon, as I told
you, was highly satisfactory. I haven't tried to push
you from your convictions on the Harpeth Falls mat-
ter, but I am confident you will come around to our
viewpoint. Our position is correct. You are at liberty
to tell these gentlemen frankly what we discussed
today."
"But, Colonel," interposed the younger man, "per-
haps we'd better have a definite agreement about the
Harpeth hydroelectric development"
"My boy," interrupted the Colonel as they walked
up the broad stairs to the private dining rooms of the
second floor, "I am perfectly willing to leave the
matter to your sense of fair play. You will find that
development of the project will bring the greatest
good to the greatest number, which is still a very
good political creed."
On the landing, as the Colonel uttered the words,
they got a full view of the lighted picture of Thomas
Jefferson. The old gentleman waved at it with his
cane. Ambler was smiling. Everything seemed to turn
out just right for the Colonel, even to the gestures
with which he illustrated his conversation.
Old Shad had scrambled into a white coat and pre-
ceded them. Contemptuous of the ability of the
club's own staff of servants to serve the Colonel and


LOOT
his guests as they should be served, Shad took their
hats with a flourish and threw open the door to the
first private dining room on the left at the head of
the stairs.
Into the room, dense with tobacco smoke and reek-
ing with the fumes of whiskey, the Colonel first
stepped. With a courtly bow he turned to the younger
man, while the buzz of conversation ceased around
the long table at which the guests sat.
"Gentlemen," said Colonel Steele, a touch of the
dramatic in his voice, "I have the honor and pleas-
ure to present to you, John Ambler of Steeleville, the
next Governor of our State!"
There was a gasp of surprise from the little room
as the chieftains of the Steele machine realized that
the Colonel had already committed them to a candi-
date whom some had regarded with doubt, if not
actual fear. But to a man they rose quickly to offer
congratulations.
The first to shake Ambler's hand was Kelly, who
had tried valiantly to keep the Colonel away from his
choice. "We can put you over, big boy," he said boast-
fully.
Then came Judge Griffin, Majors and Smith.
They were joined by the lesser stars in the political
firmament. There was Slemp, a district leader from
the State's largest city; McGuire, said to be the dic-
tator of the Jeffersonville local political organization,
and others from the rural congressional districts
whom Ambler did not recognize. Governor Pitts was
condescendingly cordial to the young man. Last came


46
LOOT
Daniel Graham, the newspaper editor whom Dame
Rumor had credited with being the author of many
of Governor Pitts's public utterances and proclama-
tions.
Daniel Graham was kindest of all. Face to face
with the noted Southern editor for the first time,
Ambler noted that his countenance, marked and
rugged with lines, was not unlike that of Abraham
Lincoln. Graham wore a black string tie, a white
shirt and a dark wrinkled suit. Ambler pictured him
in a mental flash in the inevitable five-gallon hat of
Southern statecraft and old-time journalism.
"My boy," said Graham in a tone of deep sin-
cerity, "I have been watching your career for some
time. You'll make a great Governor." Ambler
thanked him gratefully, sensing the compliment to
be the first genuine tribute he had received during
the night, except for those of Colonel Steele, whose
admiration for the boy he had helped to rear was
undoubtedly sincere.
Meanwhile, old Shad had been bringing prepared
plates from the club kitchens while his ebony grand-
son opened champagne and mixed drinks from a
buffet in the room. It was pre-Volstead stuff from
the Colonel's own cellars, for though Colonel Steele
drank sparingly he supplied his friends lavishly.
Talk around the table was animated. Ambler, who
did not drink, sensed that several of the district lead-
ers had already had too much liquor. But perhaps,
he thought ruefully, that was the state Colonel
Steele wished them to attain. At any event, the men


4%
LOOT
has done this, to my own satisfaction, at least. I am
not willing, however, to take the full responsibility
of this campaign without the benefit of your judg-
ment on the matter. I suggest the most candid discus-
sion of the matters which are certain to become issues
in the coming campaign."
Kelly was edging his chair closer to Ambler mo-
mentarily. As soon as the Colonel had finished his
suave little speech, Kelly spoke.
"The thing we want to be sure about is roads, Am-
bler," he began in his rasping voice, while Ambler
was aware of a momentary feeling of disgust.
"We've been building 'em pretty fast, but not fast
enough. I can guarantee to get more votes with a mile
of road in a rural county still in the mud than with a
hatful of money paid to district workers on election
day. A good promise of a road is worth about as much
as the road itself, if there's money enough at the
capitol to build it. How do you feel towards the bond
issue we've been talking about over the State?"
Ambler's reply, instantly given, showed his inti-
mate knowledge of State affairs.
"I favor a bond issue, but not one as large as the
bond issue advocates and highway associations have
proposed," said Ambler. "I have heard some of their
demands as high as a quarter of a billion dollars. 1
don't think the bond issue for highways ought to be
larger than a hundred million, and not even that high
if a new tax on gasoline, which I shall propose, will
not retire the bonds during the lifetime of this gen-
eration. The fact is that I would not favor a bond


LOOT
49
issue at all, but for the realization that we simply
can't build roads to meet the popular necessity out
of current revenues. One of the great dangers of get-
ting it too large is that we haven't trained and de-
veloped highway engineers and contractors to carry
on such a large program efficiently. Does that meet
your question?"
"Check," said Kelly grinning. "We don't expect to
get no quarter of a billion dollars anyway. 'Sail right.
I just wanted to know if the gravy was going to keep
running."
Majors, who had been fidgeting in his chair, took
up the queer cross examination. Ambler, knowing his
connection with various organizations of paving con-
tractors and material men, was amused to observe the
trend of his questions.
"In this expanded highway program," began Ma-
jors, "would you expect to advocate any change in
the administration of the highway funds or in the
methods of purchasing supplies and materials?"
"No, it is not my present intention," said Ambler,
"though of course you must know that I cannot be
bound by an opinion so far in advance and without
a survey of the highway department. The bonds
would be sold and the money turned into the State
treasury in the regular way to the credit of the high-
way department. The highway commissioner would
check the money out as he has done heretofore upon
the completion of paving projects or to machinery
and material firms from which the highway depart-
ment had bought. This routine has brought a fine


so
LOOT
State highway system halfway to completion and I
can see no reason to change it. Nor do I see any rea-
son now to change the method of purchasing. Is that
what you wished to know?"
"Exactly," replied Majors. He seemed vastly
pleased. "I just wanted to be sure that our friends
who have helped us and who will help to elect you,
can still get the State business they deserve," he ex-
plained.
Judge Griffin's patrician hands had been picking
aimlessly at the tablecloth while Kelly and Majors
had been questioning the candidate. At last he spoke.
"I have been very much interested, of course, Mr.
Ambler, in the disposition of Harpeth Falls," he
said. "I am naturally wondering how your mind
runs on that matter?"
Colonel Steele turned quickly to Judge Griffin as
though to offer an explanation, but Ambler was
quicker.
"There is no reason," said Ambler, "why my con-
victions on the subject should not be known to any-
one who wishes to know them. I have had some de-
bate already with Colonel Steele on that point. The
Colonel and I usually agree on matters of State pol-
icy," he added with a smile, "but we aren't exactly
together on this."
"I favor, of course, the speedy development of the
State's hydroelectric power," continued Ambler,
while the power attorney brightened visibly. "At the
present rate of industrial development, we'll face a
serious power shortage in our State within the next


LOOT
51
decade unless our potential water power is developed.
This will especially curtail the farmer's power as the
companies will naturally favor the industrial centers.
It seems to me, therefore, that it is the part of pa-
triotism and wisdom to hasten this development. It
is an emergency matter and ought not to wait. I fa-
vor development also by private companies and capi-
tal, as I do not believe in either government owner-
ship or operation of any utility unless absolutely
necessary." Judge Griffin was smiling openly now.
"But," Ambler went on, "there are things that may
be even more important than money. Harpeth Falls
is surely one of the most beautiful spots in the
South. The Indians used to come to watch it, long be-
fore the white man came. It has been a great natural
heritage owned in common by all the people. If the
manufacture of electricity at this waterfall would de-
stroy it, it could not be justified even on the broad
grounds of public policy. It would be an act of sheer
vandalism. Besides, I have served as president of a
conservation association for some years which has for
its purpose the preservation of Harpeth Falls. I
could not now consistently, even if I were so minded,
advocate a change."
Kelly broke out in a laugh. It was directed at Col-
onel Steele and said almost as plain as words, "I told
you so."
But Ambler was not through. "I am very sorry,
Judge, that I cannot meet your views entirely," he
resumed. "But I have studied the subject rather
closely and I have found a compromise that ought


(2
LOOT
to be agreeable to you. If you will eliminate Dam
One in your plan, which is the dam that would
destroy the falls, and use only Dams Two and Three
in your plan, I'll sign the bill!"
Judge Griffin had been too good a country horse
trader in his youth on his father's plantation to show
too much exultation at even this significant compro-
mise, but the others were delighted. They said as
much noisily.
"I am not at all sure whether the engineers could
agree to this," said Judge Griffin cautiously. "I am
not sure that we could develop the property profit-
ably on this basis. If this is possible I shall, of course,
be glad to offer this to my company as a compro-
mise and get the whole thing settled and out of the
newspapers, as it has caused us trouble for years. Per-
sonally, I'd be glad to accept your views."
"Judge, will you trust me to work this out be-
tween you two?" interposed Colonel Steele placat-
ingly. "I am certain that it can be worked out to the
satisfaction of all. Mr. Ambler is meeting our views
so fairly in other matters that this ought not to prove
a stumbling block."
"Why, of course, Colonel," said Judge Griffin and
the matter was dropped for the time. Secretly he
was delighted that Ambler had gone as far as he had.
"Now that we have taken care of all the private
interests," said Daniel Graham with solemn humor,
"what are we going to offer the dear pee-pul in ex-
change for their votes, what are we going to do for
them?"


LOOT
S3
"We've got that all fixed, Mr. Graham," said
Ambler, partaking of his irony. "I will advocate, as
I have always advocated, a complete repeal of the
State tax on land and property. I'll advocate also a
constitutional amendment which will permit the
classification and taxation of property according to
income. Thus farms and homes, which are not as
profitable as business property, will pay less taxes."
"Good!" exclaimed Graham, with real enthusi-
asm. "That will be a real reform. And so simple that
I wonder none of us thought of it before."
There was drunken applause from the other end
of the room and Senator Flippen, whom Ambler
recognized as a member of the last State Senate from
a rural district, began to make a maudlin speech which
entwined the names of Governor Pitts and John Am-
bler with the Stars and Stripes of Old Glory. Ambler
sensed that the ordeal was over and that he had
passed the test successfully. Strangely, he found him-
self not thinking of his coming honors but of the
starry eyes of Julia Steele. She would be so happy
for him.
At the moment old Shad stuck his grizzled head
in the door and summoned Ambler to the telephone.
It was Julia telephoning from Steeleville to offer
congratulations on his candidacy and chaff him as
"Governor."
When he returned Ambler was met by Colonel
Steele and Daniel Graham in the hallway. Both
congratulated him warmly.
"John," said the Colonel, "the concensus of opin-


56
LOOT
and can now guarantee the two-dam bill. What do
you say?"
"We'll give the hundred thousand," said Judge
Griffin sulkily.
"Majors, we have your interests down for one
hundred thousand dollars for the primary," said the
Colonel. "We'll need more for the general elec-
tion."
The spokesman of the paving interests gulped
audibly. "All right, Colonel," said Majors finally.
"By the way, Majors," said the Colonel, "if your
people don't contribute gracefully to the campaign
fund, remind them that a State administration can
change specifications for materials or it might even
build its own cement plants and operate them by con-
vict labor. Or it might fire all the contractors and do
the work on force account."
"They won't object," defended Majors, "so long
as they get a cut at the gravy."
"Kelly, there's fifty thousand dollars left for you
to raise. I suggest you get half of it from insurance
companies, banks, railroads and other beneficiaries of
the beauties of democracy. Get the other half from
State employes, just to make them value the organi-
zation that keeps them in jobs."
The Colonel was rising. The job was about done.
"Turn the money over to Kelly by the end of the
week in cash—bills of large denominations," directed
the Colonel. "Ambler's formal announcement will
be out next Monday and we must open headquarters


LOOT
S7
within the week. We're going to have the hardest
fight and the biggest victory of our lives."
"Here, Shad, wake up," said the Colonel as he
poked his head out of the door and observed the old
negro sleeping. "I want to go home."
The empire builder left the tight little room and
walked downstairs. At the foot he called to Kelly, his
trusted lieutenant. He directed him to proceed with
caution, but haste, to have Congressman Jenkins
qualified as a candidate for the United States Sen-
ate. There had been a look in the eyes of Governor
Thomas Jefferson Pitts that the Colonel could not
fathom. If Pitts rebelled and tried to wrest the
State machine from Steele, then Steele would put
the machine behind Jenkins. At any event, Jenkins
would be used as a pawn in the game, an earnest of
Pitts's good behavior.
Jauntily, Colonel Gideon Steele left the Southern
Club and passed out into the night. He had done, he
thought, a big day's work, a good day's work.


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63
county and was originally from Cheatham. "She has a
brother named 'Bull' Anniston, a bootlegger and bad
egg."
"Cap'n, Pse mighty sorry 'bout this here thing
what's happened," said the bell boy who had stood,
typewriter in hand, blank with amazement during
the whole proceedings. The black boy no longer
grinned and he seemed to sense the indignity the
blackmailers haH put upon his hotel.
"Forget it, George," said Ambler, slipping him a
bill.
"Yes, suh, Kunnel, thank yer, suh, Kunnel," said
the boy as he put down the typewriter and salaamed
himself out of the room.
The rapid promotion the negro had given Ambler
in military rank broke the tension and the three men
roared with laughter.
"They have a standard of titles for tips," said
Graham. "I tip only a dime and therefore am just
plain 'boss' or even 'white folks.' If you tip a quarter
you rate a plain captain, but if a generous guest gives
them a half dollar or more he is automatically a
Southern Colonel."
Ambler sat down at the machine and lit a cigar,
while the reporter and editor made themselves com-
fortable.
Ordinarily, Ambler reflected, he could not bring
his mind to work logically after such a scene as he
had just undergone, but tonight the very mystery
of the affair put him on his mettle. Who would profit
by such a frame-up? The opposition candidate for


CHAPTER V
John Ambler moved in a whirl during the next
week. He was in almost hourly conference with Col-
onel Steele, who said that the campaign would be
won or lost in its first week.
"Of course," said the old Colonel confidently,
"we'll put you over, but this week will decide
whether we have a hard or an easy race."
Ambler felt himself in a new atmosphere. His
pulse was quickened by the coming battle after the
publication of his formal announcement for Gover-
nor on the Monday morning following the episode
at the Hotel Patrick Henry.
The Steeleville American assigned Ambrose Pierce
to the Ambler campaign when the announcement ap-
peared and Editor Daniel Graham endorsed Ambler
in a double leader editorial in which he summoned
the great men of the South from Thomas Jefferson
on down to the present to witness that here was a new
prophet upon whom the mantle of the great could
worthily descend.
Pierce dogged Ambler's footsteps with sardonic fi-
delity. "We have now given you over to the ages,"
the reporter told Ambler in mock heroics. "Your
brand of cigars is news. Do you wear union suits or
67


68
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B. V. D.'s? John D. Public wants to know. You pre-
fer brunettes, I see ..."
Between the young lawyer and the young reporter
there sprung up a warm regard built on a mutual
admiration. Ambler was amazed by the efficient man-
ner in which Pierce had given the news of his candi-
dacy to the world. He seemed to be functioning one-
third newspaper man, one-third press agent and one-
third politician. He had sent out copies in proof form
to all the State papers for simultaneous release and
also had succeeded in getting the story on the trunk
lines of the three press associations which served the
Jeffersonville newspapers.
The result was that Ambler's candidacy received
national publicity, as well as State and Southern
notice. The newspapers were mixed in their editorial
opinions. Editor Grover C. Hall of the Montgomery
A dvertiser discussed it pro and con in a brilliant edi-
torial. A paragrapher on the Arkansas Democrat at
Little Rock cynically observed that no such overturn
in government had been proposed since Moses
brought down the tablets of stone from Mt. Sinai.
The Louisville Courier-Journal saw in the proposed
relief of the farmers' tax rate a benefit for the to-
bacco growers. The Raleigh News and Observer com-
pared Ambler's diction with that of Woodrow Wil-
son. The Macon Telegraph editorially remarked that
no such demonstration in the South had greeted a
public utterance since Henry Grady addressed the
New England Society a half century before. "Mr.
Ambler Announces; a Call to the Statesmanship of


LOOT
69
the Old South," read the headlines over a leader edi-
torial in the Birmingham Age-Herald.
But Pierce's masterpiece was achieved in Balti-
more. He was careful to send a batch of clippings to
a famous magazine editor of that city whose icono-
clastic magazine had often attacked Southern institu-
tions. He had hoped to draw from this editor an at-
tack on Ambler and he was not disappointed. In the
next issue of the magazine appeared a violent diatribe
on Ambler as the "yokel prophet of the Bible Belt."
Ambler was thunderstruck when Pierce showed
him the clipping from the magazine and explained
how he had drawn the editor's fire.
"But this editor praised my stand when I opposed
the anti-evolution law," said Ambler.
"And I hope the country folks don't remember
that," returned Pierce. "I got this attack on you pur-
posely to wash away the recollection of that praise.
It would ruin you."
And, to Ambler's intense disgust, the reporter
printed the magazine's editorial in the American and
sent out copies to the country press. All during the
summer it kept bobbing up in the weekly papers of
the hinterland, coupled with praise of Ambler for
having won the disapproval of the South's arch critic.
That week Ambler learned many things that
weren't in his college course or in his legal training.
One of them was that few men could stand before
the keen eyes of Colonel Steele and refuse him. In-
deed, that few men could stand up and fight him. He
seemed to dominate every situation into which he


70
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entered, though he deferred to Ambler at every turn.
A demonstration of Steele's courage to face any
situation came on the day after his announcement
when the opposition press printed rumors of a break
between the Pitts administration and Steele. The
Colonel's watchdog, Kelly, had brought word of
these reports hours before they were printed. The
Colonel was lunching with Ambler at the Southern
Club when the news came.
To Ambler's amazement, Colonel Steele was not
disturbed.
"We have an ace in the hole, my boy," he told
Ambler with twinkling eyes. "After lunch we'll walk
up to see his excellency, the Governor."
They walked down King William Street and up
the hill to the statehouse. Governor Pitts's secretary
ushered them into his chief at once. The Governor
was elaborately courteous but he was cool. Before
him was a copy of the Jeffersonville American of the
previous day. It contained not only Ambler's an-
nouncement for Governor but the news that Con-
gressman Jenkins had qualified to make the race
against Governor Pitts for the United States Senate.
The Colonel came to the point at once, his eyes as
steely blue as a blue steel revolver.
Under their steady glare the Governor wilted. He
denied that he had hinted to reporters from the op-
position press than he planned to ditch the Steele ma-
chine and make his senatorial race alone, concentrat-
ing the strength of the State administration on the
Senate race rather than on Ambler. He denied that


LOOT
71
he told the State Highway Commissioner to refuse to
locate highways in counties until the delegation of
citizens requesting the road locations had pledged
support to the Governor in his Senate race. He de-
nied that he had told the State Treasurer to with-
draw the deposit of State monies from banks which
were known to be favorable to Steele. He denied
many charges and as the Colonel sat silent but at-
tentive, Pitts gathered courage.
"But the truth is, Colonel," said the Governor, re-
covering some of his lost urbanity, "that I have ren-
dered such a service to this State and to you that I
ought not to have opposition for the Senate."
"I knew you were galled by that," returned Col-
onel Steele. Then he leaned forward and spat out his
words like the fire of a machine gun.
"Pitts," he said, "I elected you twice. You couldn't
be elected County Commissioner in your home county
when I took you up. You know that as well as I do."
The Governor flushed, but said nothing. He
seemed to quail before the baleful eye of the political
boss.
"The denials you have made here of the moves
you have tried to make are lies," said the Colonel in
his steely voice. The Governor cringed but the word
seemed to lie between the two men on the table like
a corpse in the house. Ambler was embarrassed to
witness such a scene. Kelly winked at him know-
ingly.
"You forget that the State Treasurer was elected
by a Legislature which I controlled and was not your


72
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appointee," resumed Steele. "You forget that the
State Highway Commissioner is my friend and politi-
cal protege. You forget that what you have already
tried to do in this matter constitutes a public scandal,
if known. Any other efforts along this line will result
in a special session of the Legislature called to im-
peach you."
Ambler felt that the Colonel was bluffing and the
Governor seemed to think likewise. He mocked:
"You forget that only the Governor can call the
General Assembly into extraordinary session."
"And you forget, my dear fellow," retorted Col-
onel Steele sarcastically, "that a majority of the
Legislature when informed of malfeasance or mis-
feasance of the Governor in office, can by petition as-
semble itself for the purpose of impeachment."
The Governor's palor betrayed that Colonel
Steele had reminded him of a forgotten section of
the State's constitution.
"Do you know who qualified Congressman Jen-
kins?" asked Colonel Steele. Pitts shook his head
dumbly and Steele played his ace in the hole.
"I had him qualified," said the Colonel smoothly.
"But why?" cried the Governor as in sudden
agony. "Have I not served your organization well?"
"I did it because I foresaw how you might act in
this crisis," said Colonel Steele. "I did it as an earn-
est of your good behavior, and also to keep out other
candidates. If he withdraws, you have the race with-
out opposition. Before he was qualified in the Senate
race, he qualified himself as a candidate for reelec-


LOOT
73
tion to succeed himself in the lower house of Con-
gress. He is now, by chance, qualified in both races."
Governor Pitts's wary eyes lit up with new hope.
"Colonel, you misjudge me," he said, "I am for
Mr. Ambler for Governor. Although a candidate for
the Senate myself, I'll issue a statement endorsing
Mr. Ambler's race for Governor and pointing him
out as the logical successor to my administration."
This was one of the points the Colonel had been
playing for, but he affected to regard it as a small
matter.
"Just as you like," he said. "But there is some-
thing you can do. Permit Kelly to go into the State
departments, especially the highway and educational
departments, and organize them for Ambler, tak-
ing full charge of the administration's political situa-
tion."
Governor Pitts assented eagerly, though he knew
it meant that Capitol Hill for the next few months
would be directed from Colonel Steele's office. It
might even be organized against his own candidacy,
or at least in such a manner that his ambition would
be subrogated to that of Ambler.
"But, in return for this, you will agree to with-
draw Jenkins from the Senate race?" Pitts asked.
"Pitts, don't you know me well enough to know
that I have never been guilty of making a political
deal?" asked the Colonel frigidly. Ambler gasped
at the assertion. True, he had never known of any
of Steele's political trades, but he did not see how
all of the Colonel's intricate political maneuvers


74
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could be accomplished without some understanding.
He recognized the distaste of the politician for mak-
ing a political deal publicly.
"All right, all right," said the Governor hastily.
But once outside the State House, the Colonel
drew Kelly aside and gave him instructions.
"Go to Congressman Jenkins down at the Patrick
Henry and tell him I said he must withdraw from
the senatorial race. If he does not withdraw grace-
fully, point out that he was qualified by only one
more than the legal number required on a qualifying
petition, that the time limit for qualifying has ex-
pired and hint that it might be possible to show by
affidavits from some of the signers of the petition
that they are not qualified voters, some of them hav-
ing forgotten to pay their poll taxes or to register.
Thus he may not be legally qualified. In other words,
Mr. Jenkins has served his purpose well and now
must be booted out of the race. Promise him financial
support in his race for reelection to Congress up to
ten thousand dollars, and let's all see that the old man
is returned to his seat in the House. Also tell him I
am very appreciative and his time may come yet."
The next day Ambler read two interviews in the
morning American. The first was from Governor
Pitts and praised Ambler to the skies as the worthy
successor to "this progressive administration." The
second was from Congressman Jenkins and an-
nounced that he would "yield to the wishes of many
friends and constituents in my old congressional dis-
trict and make the race for reelection."


CHAPTER VI
John Ambler opened his campaign for Governor
at Cheatham in his own county. It was the biggest
political show the State ever saw.
Because Ambler was from Steeleville, the bitterest
commercial and political rival of Cheatham, the lat-
ter tried to outdo its ancient rival and it did it with a
bang.
Ambler rode over in his car with Colonel Steele
and Julia to participate in the parade. They met the
waiting autos at Chestnut Hill, three miles from
Cheatham, and headed the parade into Cheatham.
The scene was reminiscent of the fiery old days in
Southern politics. Leading the entire procession and
mounted on large mules were the members of the
County Court. Most of them were grave old men,
but they whooped like Indians, and slapped the sides
of their mules, as they galloped in parade formation
in front of the candidate's car.
Behind the car came the Cheatham Military Band,
dressed in white and playing its entire repertoire of
three numbers. Ambler identified the "Soldier's
Chorus" from Faust, Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes
Forever" and, of course, "Dixie," played in a gal-
lop. But the band never got to play more than the
77


78
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opening strains of "Dixie." The crowds drowned it
out with cheering.
It was unusual for Colonel Steele to attend a po-
litical demonstration, but this one was in his old home
county and for the young lawyer whose place in his
affections was becoming even larger as the days went
by. It was plain to see that the Colonel, whose eyes
revealed his excitement, was getting a rare kick out
of the proceedings, while Julia looked on with an air
of quiet pride.
Behind the Ambler car, itself the only decorated
vehicle in the procession, moved several hundred
autos, an old family surrey and a few buggies, all
decorated with gay streamers and ribbons.
At intervals came three other bands. The one at
the end of the procession attracted the most attention.
It was a band made up entirely of strapping negro
men in the most awesome costumes. It bore a large
banner proclaiming that the band was from Rising
Sun Lodge of the Sons and Daughters of Israel.
These Israelites, truth to tell, were the only unpaid
performers in the entire show. They came out of
respect for Ambler, who was regarded as a friend
of the negro, but mainly because of their extrava-
gant admiration for Colonel Steele, who was re-
garded as a sort of demigod.
The attention of the Israelites along the line of
march was riveted in the main on the other gentle-
men of color whom they spied in the fields and on
the road to Cheatham. It seemed that most of them
had not seen their friends and relatives for years, tc


LOOT
79
judge by the lusty salutations that went over the
sides of the decorated truck on which they rode.
At intervals the colored band burst into hearty
and unrestrained music. Mainly it was the Memphis
Blues, the St. Louis Blues or the St. James Infirm-
ary Blues. At intervals the Ethiopian minstrels took
their instruments from their mouths and shouted the
words of a song. Thus, after a few bars, they would
shout—
"I lost my gal from Memphis,
She went to Caroline,
I knew jest who she went with,
A dear old pal of mine!"
Honor and glory were added that gay day to Ris-
ing Sun Lodge of the Daughters and Sons of Israel
as they rode in the white folks' procession in honor
of the county's native son, John Ambler. It was
shared by the wandering gentlemen of color along
the road, attracted from the cotton fields by the music
and the cheering. As the parade neared Cheatham
the enterprise of the colored race became apparent.
They had erected scores of rough-timbered stands
along the road and from them sold hot catfish, soda
pop, chitlings and other delicacies.
At the city limits the procession was met by the
Mayor and City Council. The Mayor, an excited lit-
tle man who was all too obviously impressed with the
solemnity of the occasion, presented Ambler with a
huge basket of roses and a key to the city some six
feet long, the pride of a local tinshop. The key to


80
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the city almost crowded the party out of the car, but
they kept it bravely. After the speaking, Ambler
heaved it into a convenient culvert on the way back
to Steeleville.
The procession rode through a lane of flowers
down the town's leading street, Steele Boulevard, re-
named in honor of the Colonel after his coup for the
Cheatham courthouse. At the courthouse the proces-
sion jammed the square, already crowded with a col-
lection of farm wagons, mules, horses and dilapidated
flivvers. It was not only the opening day of a great
political campaign. It was the first Monday in June,
which meant the convening of the County Court, the
sounding of the docket of the Circuit Court for the
summer term, and the monthly gathering of every
horse and mule trader in the county, every dealer in
farm lands, most of the farmers of the county and
many others connected with agriculture. The wily
management of the Ambler campaign at State head-
quarters had taken these things into consideration.
In the great lawn around the courthouse had been
sunk barbecue pits. There were the carcasses of a
score of steers, a dozen or more sheep and a dozen
hogs, which had been cooking all night and half the
day. There was the tang of woodsmoke in the air
from the barbecue pits.
The thousands thronged the rough counters
around the barbecue pits and were served by the
negro barbecue experts who had prepared the feast.
Wooden trays, heaped high with barbecued meat,
light bread and pickles, were passed out, while fur-


LOOT
81
ther down the line a busy committee of citizens
ladled out lemonade and buttermilk or passed out
soda pop. The food and drinks were free.
Ambler and the Steeles mingled with the crowds.
In many groups of the courthouse lawn the Colonel
found boys named for him, sons of fathers who had
served with him in the old campaigns of the county.
He moved among the country people like a major
prophet come home. His enjoyment was great. It was
a big day for him. For years he had been content to
keep in the background and pull the strings for his
political puppets.
On one of the windows of the courthouse Colonel
Steele discoverd Kelly.
"Everything moving along as we planned?" the
Colonel asked.
"Fine," said Kelly. "The whole State House
turned out for the parade. The highway contractors
furnished the cars and trucks, as you directed. We're
all set for the sacred ox to speak."
"Reimburse the local committee for the barbecue,
the bands and other expense as soon as possible," or-
dered the Colonel.
"So," thought Ambler, who had happened to over-
hear the conversation, "not even the crowds come of
their own accord to political speakings. They had to
be hauled in donated trucks!"
By one o'clock the crowd had been fed and had
begun to congregate on the benches of rough lumber
in front of the courthouse. There was not an avail-
able inch of space left in the entire square, either in-


LOOT
83
lemnity, "by the Reverend Mr. uh—that is to say,
the Reverend"
Here the Mayor broke down completely. He
gulped twice and his Adam's apple raced up and
down his long neck. He dived first into one pocket
and then the other for a paper. He found it, fixed
his glasses on his nose frantically and glanced at the
paper. Up and down the Mayor's pop eyes traveled.
He couldn't find the name. He turned the paper
over.
"You don't go to church, do you, Mayor?" sang
out a voice from the rear, and the crowd rocked with
laughter.
The Mayor shot a withering glance in the direction
of the heckler and began all over again.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "as I was about
to say when interrupted, the meeting will be led in
prayer by the Rev. John Wesley Smith, pastor of the
First Methodist Church."
The Rev. Mr. Smith seemed to take the meeting
as a special place to strike a blow for the higher
things of life, or perhaps he was only following the
injunction to "pray unceasingly." He prayed fer-
vently for fifteen minutes amid a torrent of
"Amen's" and shouts of "Hear him, brother." Had
he called for converts, the mourners' bench might
have been full.
As the minister retired solemnly to his seat, he
was accosted by Ambrose Pierce, the reporter, who
asked for a copy of his prayer.
"Honest, Doctor, that was the finest prayer I ever


84
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heard," said the incorrigible newspaper man, sending
a covert wink at Ambler. "I want you to write it out
for the Jeffersonville American, especially the part
praying for 'divine guidance' on this campaign for
good government."
The flattered minister followed him into the
county court clerk's office, just behind the rostrum, to
write out his prayer.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said the Mayor, again,
"I now have the honor to present the chairman of
this gathering who will in turn present your honored
guest. I introduce State Senator Jefferson D. Forrest
of Cheatham."
Senator Jefferson D. Forrest of Cheatham was
nothing loath to step forward and burst into speech.
He started at the early foundations "of the Republic
and worked on up, stone by stone. The capstone of
this edifice, he intimated, "would not be complete
without the election of the Honorable John Ambler,
than whom "but he got no further. The crowd,
led by the clerks and other State employes who had
come thither at the command of their bureau and de-
partmental chiefs, cheered him to the echo.
"I ain't heared such a noise since Shiloh," shouted
one of the old soldiers on the platform into the hand-
cupped ear of his neighbor.
"'Twas wuss noise at Gettysburg," retorted the
other with a treble whinny.
Through the din Senator Jefferson D. Forrest
grinned amiably, as he walked back and forth on the
platform with thumbs under arms. He enjoyed it for


LOOT
85
a few moments, then he threw up his hand and
signaled for silence.
The nomination and election of the county's fa-
vorite son, he said, would bring reforms such as were
never dreamed by the author of the Declaration of
Independence or the fathers of the republic.
"Why is it, my friends," he asked in a pleading
voice, "when reforms are instituted in our beloved
State, that some one comes forward, some wolf in
sheep's closing—nay, some wolf in legal sheepskin—
some one, I say, comes forward and stigmatizes them
as unconstitutional? My friends, I am one who be-
lieves that the constitution is a document that can be
moulded and remoulded to meet the needs of the
sovereign people. I believe that the constitution is
the servant of the people instead of the master of
the people." (Loud cheers). Such a reform, he said,
was the proposed elimination of the state tax on
land.
At this point Senator Jefferson D. Forrest left the
ground entirely and soared in the clouds, shaking
hands with the angels in his oratorical flight. He met
Robert E. Lee and his embattled hosts in Valhalla,
paid a touching tribute to Stonewall Jackson, eulo-
gized the Confederate Flag, damned the Puritan
fathers with faint praise and heaped enconiums on
the Cavaliers. By the time he had gotten back to
earth, he had repealed the state tax on land and im-
proved the economic status of every farmer in the
audience. But just as he did it there came from some-
where in the center of the crowd an insistent and sibi-


86
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lant hissing. Somebody was giving the Honorable
Forrest the raspberry!
The Senator stopped in the midst of the hissing
and cast an eye as keen as ever was Daniel Web-
ster's over the assemblage. There was a dead silence
The speaker met the heckler in time-honored fashion.
"My friends," he said slowly, "only two of God's
living creatures utters a hiss. One is a goose and the
other is a rattlesnake!"
There was deafening applause and the Senator had
won the day. But no sooner had be gotten back to
the even tenor of his speech than there came another
interruption. A woman in the audience, seated in a
farm wagon at the edge of the crowd, began to have
trouble with her baby. The little fellow, sitting in her
lap under the broiling sun, began to whimper. Her
neighbors muttered suggestively and the Mayor
leaned forward from the platform to suggest, sotto
voice, that the woman take the infant outside.
Laying a detaining hand on the shoulder of the
Mayor, Senator Forrest thundered:
"Never mind, never mind, let the good woman
stay here and hear words that will mean much to her
and much more to her little babe. Ah, this is a cam-
paign in which the women and children of our State
ought to be interested. This is a campaign on behalf
of the women and children!"
Without any need of leadership from the State
Capitol group, the crowd yelled and roared its ap-
proval. Under the cover of the general noise the
woman unbottoned her bosom and suckled the infant.


LOOT
89
Then the applause was greater than before. As
Ambler turned to take a sip of water from the glass
on the table by his side he saw astonishment writ on
the impish countenance of Kelly over the spectacle of
a candidate who didn't want applause but who got
more applause by asking that it stop. It was the dem-
onstration of a crowd psychology evidently unknown
to Kelly.
"I am a plain man," Ambler said, "without the arts
and wiles of the politician. If you do not favor these
things of which I am speaking, then do not vote for
me, for as surely as I am elected Governor of this
State, they will be written into law."
This declaration seemed to appeal to Kelly's sense
of humor for he shook internally. Had Ambler been
a lip-reader he would have caught Kelly's whisper
to one of Colonel Steele's machine cogs near by. It
was to the effect that Ambler was going to be a bet-
ter candidate than he thought possible because "the
durned fool believes he really can do all that." But
Kelly frowned in real irritation when Ambler de-
parted a moment later from his prepared speech to
pledge that no whipping or lynching of any person,
white or black, could occur in the State during his
administration, if the strong arm of the law could
arrive in time. Kelly remembered there had been two
lynchings in Cheatham within the year and that a
lawless band of nightriders and whitecaps was then
operating in the county to terrorize the negroes.
"I do not come before you," said Ambler, "like
the demagogue who would sap your reason with rhet-


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oric and array class against class. Nor do I promise
you a large reduction in State expenditures. On the
contrary, I believe that my administration, if I am
elected Governor of your State, will spend more
money than any previous administration. We shall
see that every dollar is honestly and effectively spent.
But, make no mistake, it will be spent for the things
which progress demands—roads and schools and im-
provements of all kinds which make life happier and
easier. At the same time I promise you a reduction
of at least two million dollars annually in the State
tax now levied on land and property. Eventually, as
the State's financial condition warrants, we shall aban-
don entirely the raising of revenue for State pur-
poses by a tax on land. Such a method is a cheap
makeshift for scientific taxation. It bears heaviest
on those who are least able to pay. I offer this as the
only contribution to farm relief which I think a
State government ought to make, after extending
to farming the usual services of an efficient depart-
ment of agriculture. Ours is slowly becoming an in-
dustrial State. What must be your problems when
your sons and daughters are lured from the farms
to the factories of the cities? I say with measured
words, and with no thought of aping the honeyed
words of the demagogues, that when agriculture fails
our republic will fall."
Ambler spoke barely an hour, but long before he
finished he realized that he held the crowd in the
hollow of his hand. The discovery did not elate him
so much as it sobered and steadied him. There was


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93
of the Legislature until, some thirty years before, he
had been Governor of the State. His reputation for
integrity was one of the proud boasts of the State.
He was widely known as "Honest L. Q." and must
have been all of eighty years of age, though still
able, so several of his voluntary and bibulous Bos-
wells said, to drink a quart of whiskey each day.
The old gentleman refused to believe the evidence
of his own eyes that a new day had come in State
government. His main campaign pledge was to re-
duce State expenditures and return to the "economy
and efficiency in government, the democratic sim-
plicity, of thirty years ago" when, it might be added,
there was not a foot of hard-surfaced roads in the
State, when the public school was mainly a conven-
ience of the towns and cities, and when the Governor
went to his office in the Capitol building, in a han-
som cab.
The Armistead candidacy was appealing to a good
many old-fashioned people but its aims fell with a
dull thud on the ears of many thousands of the up-
and-coming citizenry whose god was progress and
whose high priests of progress were the highways and
the public schools. The fifteen thousand or more
State employes heard with ominous forebodings
Armistead's pledge to reduce their number by half
and they redoubled their efforts to put Ambler over.
What was most dangerous in the old man's candi-
dacy was his continual appeal to State pride and sen-
timent.
"For fifty years I have fought the battles of my


94
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State and my party," he was accustomed to say, "and
I am now asking to serve both for the last time I
shall hold any public office, rounding out my career
in the Governor's office in my State."
But all the sentimental appeals in the world could
not stand for long against the remorseless work of
the Steele machine. It was receiving reports that the
Armistead managers had not perfected organizations
in more than half of the counties, depending appar-
ently on their candidate's oft repeated declaration that
he had "abiding faith in the wisdom and judgment
of the American people." And Colonel Steele, with
high disdain for lofty sentiments on popular govern-
ment, had an organization capable of directing the
"wisdom and judgment" of the people to the point
where their ballots for Ambler were deposited in the
ballot boxes and then counted in such a manner as
to give Ambler the benefit of every doubt. And in
the administration of the State government—every
foot of highways, every new school and every State
improvement—every little movement had a meaning
all its own. All maneuvers were directed at getting
votes.
As he devoted his entire time to his speaking en-
gagements over the State, Ambler heard strange
tales from the State House. Each member of the
Governor's cabinet functioned with a henchman of
Kelly's by his side. Kelly made the most of the State
highway program, never promising a road until the
leading politicians of the section affected by the new
highway had promised to line up for Ambler. Every


96
LOOT
Ambler moved forward in perplexity. Mr. Armi-
stead, when he had seen him a few moments before,
seemed unaware of any intention to quit the race
suddenly.
"Look here," said Kelly, and he shoved two affi-
davits before him. "These men gave them," he ex-
plained.
Ambler's practised eyes sped through the legal
phraseology which introduced the oaths of the affi-
ants and came swiftly to their crux. It was very sim-
ple. The men simply stated on their oaths that they
had been in Chestnut Hill, a mountain village some
one hundred miles to the east of Jeffersonville, on
a night a week before when Mr. Armistead had de-
livered his speech there; that they had stayed in an
adjoining room to the candidate at the Southern Ho-
tel in that village; that following the speaking the
candidate returned to the hotel and there indulged in
"a drinking orgy" with several local friends; that the
disturbance made by the intoxicated men was such as
to keep the two citizens awake half the night until
finally they complained to the management of the
hotel; that the management sent the bell captain
to the room to caution the guests, whereupon the bell
boy was cursed by someone within the room and a
brawl started in which the candidate for Governor
took part
But Ambler read no more.
"I don't want this used, Kelly," snapped Ambler.
"Whether true or untrue, it is a blow below the belt
and I won't be a party to any such campaign tac-


98
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you. He wants it published, but not through any
newspaper friendly to us."
Ambler's face was white with rage. He snatched
the telephone and said:
"Colonel, I didn't consult you about the advisa-
bility of using these affidavits. They may be expedi-
ent politically, but, by God, they are inexcusable
morally. They relate an alleged incident in a man's
private room, and if this thing is permitted in this
campaign, then the next issue of the papers will carry
the announcement of my withdrawal from the race."
Ambler could hear the gasp of pure astonishment,
followed by a brief but eloquent silence.
"I did not know you felt so keenly about it, John,"
said the Colonel's well-modulated voice in a moment.
"I merely was looking at the matter from the stand-
point of practical politics and to help your cause. Of
course, if you feel that way about it, we'll drop it.
All I knowabout the matter iswhat Kelly has told me."
Kelly, pop-eyed with amazement that anyone
should beard the Colonel, flung out the door of the
private office to dismiss his two visitors, brushing by
Ambrose Pierce, the reporter.
"Where'd Battling Kid Kelly get the jail-birds?"
asked the newspaper man, and Ambler learned con-
firmation of his suspicions that the men were not plain
citizens from the great open spaces with the good of
the prohibition laws at heart, but former convicts
with blackmail records, very probably hired by the
unscrupulous Kelly to do the job of framing the
opposition candidate.


LOOT
99
But, after that, Ambler was not bothered by the
devious tricks of the political trade. He made his
campaign in his own way in peace. Whatever tricks
the machine gang pulled, they did without his knowl-
edge or consent. Apparently they fought out the cam-
paign to the end, using mainly their skill for organi-
zation, even though an organization which even the
busy Ambler could sense was functioning on a golden
stream of cash from the Steele war chests and that
was using political patronage to control tens of thou-
sands of votes.
Back and forth over the State Ambler hurried
until the primary of early August closed the cam-
paign. He delivered more than one hundred speeches
and covered thousands of miles in his car, which was
piloted all the way by young Shad. Here and there
Ambler sensed that Armistead had been successful
in his appeal for honors from the old party and the
old State for the last time, or in his fiery attacks on
organized politics. At such places Ambler bore down
harder than ever on the Steele gospel of progress—
more roads, more schools, more public health units,
more bureaus to relieve economic and physical dis-
tress, more government. Armistead, in rebuttal in his
speeches, which generally followed Ambler on the
next day, drew the reverse side of the picture such a
program entails—more jobs for the politicians, more
money for the campaign funds, a more perfectly
functioning political machine to control the elec-


LOOT
101
"It just won't do," he said. "The interests we plan
to pry loose for more taxation would be spending
money against us like water from one end of the
State to another. When I was in Congress I learned
a name for trying to answer something you can't an-
swer. It was 'holding a red hot poker on the front
porch.' Answer all the frivolous charges in politics,
but never make a reply to a serious charge, and this
one is serious. Don't dream of answering it. Ignore
it!"
Ambler felt this was a poor way of conducting a
campaign that claimed to be candid with the electo-
rate, but he did ignore it and the talk soon blew over.
It was succeeded by gossip that the candidate was
straddling on the important issue of Harpeth Falls,
but to this Ambler paid little heed, feeling in his
conscience that he could protect the beautiful falls
against even the most rapacious of his allies in the
power companies.
As the summer wore on with its wearying grind
of campaigning, Ambler came to feel some of the
nervous tension of Colonel Steele, who regarded the
campaign as the most important of his life. The ex-
pensive highway program and other internal im-
provements had been begun by the Colonel under the
Pitts regime, and this election would be a referen-
dum on progress. If the people approved of what
had been done and what was promised, they would
keep the Steele machine in power for years to come.
If they disapproved, the Steele machine would fall,
never to rise again. In each speech, Ambler tried to


LOOT
103
marched on the jail, disarmed the unresisting sheriff
and his deputies and hung the negro from the court-
house balcony.
"That," commented Kelly unfeelingly the next
morning, "was a close squeeze. If old Pitts had or-
dered out the militia, there would have been a battle
between the soldiers and the mob and what that
would have done for our organization would have
been a-plenty. We'd have lost every race Colonel
Steele is interested in. Let the mobs have their way,
Mr. Ambler, when you are Governor of this State.
It pays."
Ambler, too sick at heart to even controvert this
doctrine, got in his auto and was driven by young
Shad to Steeleville for the final speech of his cam-
paign, but he swore an oath in his heart that when
he became Governor he would uphold the majesty of
the law and live the doctrine to which the politicians
gave lip service of "equal rights to all, special privi-
leges to none." Holding the traditional view of the
well-born Southerner of kindliness and tolerance for
the negro, he swore that the black man would get a
square deal in his State.
"Shad," he said impetuously, leaning forward to
speak to his chauffeur who was guiding the flying
car towards Steeleville, "when I am Governor of
this State, such things as happened at Cheatham
won't occur again."
"Naw suh, naw suh," said young Shad. "All the
niggers says that. You is the niggers' friend, Mr.
John."


10+
LOOT
That afternoon in closing his campaign "the nig-
gers' friend" told his home folks that his adminis-
tration would mean the triumph of law and order,
though he did not mention the Cheatham episode by
name. The best citizenship of the county cheered him
to the echo and the rest, including even a few who
had indulged in the lynching party, applauded per-
functorily.
"Thank heavens," he was told that night by Kelly,
"you spoke too late to do much harm. We'll nomi-
nate you tomorrow in spite of hell and high water.
Oar organization is functioning 100 per cent perfect."
Colonel Steele, calling at the Hotel Patrick Henry
to put the tired candidate to bed on election eve,
bore even sturdier assurances of victory.
"John, we'll carry fifty-one of the seventy-five
counties for sure," the old gentleman told the candi-
date, with pride in his eyes. "'Twill be a famous
victory." But Ambler was not properly reassured
until he had put in his usual nightly long distance call
for Julia Steele on whom he had come to depend so
much during the campaign.
"You'll win by at least fifty thousand," she told
him. "I never saw father so happy."
"And if I do, young woman," said Ambler, speak-
ing roughly to hide his shyness, "I'll have something
important to say to you tomorrow night."
"Good night, Governor," she mocked and hung
up the receiver in his face. He tumbled into bed, not
even awakening when a torchlight procession and a
band passed under his window.


CHAPTER VIII
Traveling back behind young Shad on election
morning to vote at Steeleville, Ambler found the
State in a turmoil. He passed dozens of election
booths, many of them crowded with voters. Cars
bearing election placards and the names of candidates
zoomed about. Most of them, he observed, bore his
name which indicated that the Steele machine was
working hard to get out the vote. They hauled voters
to the polls all day, and if their poll taxes, a requisite
for voting in the primary, were unpaid, the taxes
were promptly paid by a Steele leader in the district
or precinct. The Armistead organization did not seem
to be functioning.
The vote at Steeleville was tremendous. More
than a thousand had voted at noon when Ambler
went into the booth, amid clicking cameras and movie
machines, to cast his vote.
"Only two votes against you today," whispered the
judge of elections as the young candidate marked his
ballot, voting for himself and all the other Steele
candidates.
"How do you know?" asked Ambler in surprise.
"We hold 'em up to the light this way," said the
election officer.
105


106
LOOT
"And if they aren't marked right, you throw them
away, don't you?" asked Ambler in jest.
"You are mighty right," rejoined the officer in
deadly earnest.
"But the method," said Ambrose Pierce, who had
accompanied Ambler, "is used mainly by political
organizations to find if the venal voter, who has
sold his vote, delivered it after purchase. If the dirty
crook hasn't voted right, they throw his vote away
and demand a refund of the dollar."
The election officers roared with laughter. What
the young reporter had said was true, and it irritated
Ambler that it was true. Not even the Australian bal-
lot could circumvent election thieves. If they were
unsuccessful in tampering with the election boxes
during the election, they still had a chance during
the night when the counting was proceeding. Kelly's
boast that the Steele machine could pick up an aver-
age of ten votes in each precinct after the polls closed
flashed through Ambler's mind. To win at all, he
thought, poor old Armistead would have to poll a tre-
mendous vote, as he did not have a representative
at the polls in many precincts though watchers were
allowed by State law. In the venal precincts, the
Armistead watchers were in many instances intimi-
dated and chased away. Reports of election irregu-
larities came from many sections of the State, while
citizens shrugged tolerantly and said that Colonel
Steele was attaining another victory.
But few had really measured the extent of the
victory until that night after the polls closed.


LOOT
107
The little summer resort village at Harpeth Falls
is equipped with electric lights, using electrical ener-
gy supplied by a dinky little hydroelectric plant atop
a dam down the river. It runs only in summer and
supplies a few score summer cabins scattered around
the falls. In low water, as was the case that August,
the plant does not run at all, the little dam lacking
storage capacity.
But the suave Judge Griffin had fixed that. He
proposed that the candidates and satraps and chief-
tains of the Steele machine receive the election re-
turns at Harpeth Falls. The wily old judge wished,
for one thing, to impress on them the importance of
his company's planned developments at the falls,
which the next Legislature was to be asked to sanc-
tion.
To make the occasion notable he had his company
hastily string a line from its nearest transmission
line and light up the little village for election night.
The telephone and telegraph companies likewise co-
operated and Harpeth Falls, for the first time, had
a long distance line and a clattering telegraph instru-
ment. A searchlight played on the beautiful falls and
hundreds of Ambler's friends came to receive the
election returns, which were flashed on a screen near
by.
Ambler, arriving in the gathering dusk of the
August day, came upon the scene from around a bend
in the narrow road with a gasp. His own cabin was
lighted brilliantly. Hard by was the Steele summer
home, refurnished and decorated for the occasion. He


LOOT
109
"We're just having a little conference with Judge
Marsden, the national committeeman of the opposi-
tion party," said Colonel Steele easily, as he intro-
duced the three visitors. The other two were revealed
to be Smith, who was chairman of the opposition's
State Executive Committee, and Peterson, who held
a high Federal post in the State. The three bore the
reputation of being thoroughgoing politicians, though
interested mainly in Federal patronage which they
dispensed for their party, now in power at Wash- •
ington.
Judge Marsden and his colleagues seemed some-
what abashed by the abrupt entrance of Ambler. They
paid their respects to him and soon left. But Kelly
explained their visit with habitual cynicism, when
Colonel Steele had gone to greet his other guests.
"We were just arranging for the biennial push-
over of the opposition party," said Kelly, as he
hunched over the telephone in the little back room
and talked to his lieutenants in various parts of the
State. "Hello, that you, Majors?" he roared. "What
in hell was the matter in Fort Sumpter County to-
day? Couldn't get 'em out, eh? Our majority there
fell down below a thousand. We can't have that sort
of stuff, Majors. You've got to improve that by mid-
night. We're looking for fifteen hundred majority
by midnight, or there'll be the devil to pay. Tell the
boys Colonel Steele said it himself. G'bye."
"This is an off-year—no presidential election," ex-
plained Kelly, jiggling the instrument impatiently.
"The sainted opposition cares only for electoral votes


LOOT
111
Julia and the Colonel to watch the election returns.
These had begun to dribble in for display on the
screen near the falls, set on the broad lawn sloping
down to the river.
As Ambler appeared on the brightly-lighted front
porch of the Steele summer home he was greeted by
applause from his friends and neighbors who had
come to share his victory. More than a hundred of
them had gathered on the lawn to cheer as good news
came in from over the State and remain silent when
the news was bad.
Ambler was sweeping the rural counties by tremen-
dous majorities, he saw at a glance, as bulletin after
bulletin was thrown on the screen.
"Bad news from Cheatham," the operator of the
machine wrote on one of the slides. His hand paused
and then added: "for Armistead! Cheatham com-
plete gives Ambler nine hundred forty-one and
Armistead one."
There was a roar of laughter as the waggish opera-
tor added:
"Posses are searching for the lone Armistead voter
and a lynching is feared."
If the city machine tricked him, Colonel Steele ex-
plained, as Julia hung breathlessly to Ambler's arm
and squealed with delight when the good bulletins
came, they had nothing to fear. The rural returns
were so unanimous for Ambler.
But the city organizations did not trick him,
though he lost two of the larger cities of the State
by small majorities. Jeffersonville wavered between


112
LOOT
the two candidates from the moment the count
started but when the polls closed at seven o'clock
went to Ambler by a small vote.
At midnight, amid cheering in the little summer
resort village that drowned out the steady roar of
Harpeth Falls, Armistead gracefully conceded his
defeat and the Jeffersonville American was able to
announce that Ambler had won by more than seventy-
five thousand, with less than a hundred scattered pre-
cincts missing. These were in the thinly settled moun-
tain regions, where Ambler was running strong. For
the first time Ambler felt sure that he would sit in
the seat that another of his name and family had
occupied with honor long before the Civil War. He
was radiantly happy.
Perhaps his elation accounted for his conversation
with Colonel Steele when the guests had departed.
"Honey," said the old Colonel to Julia, "go tell
old Shad to fetch me a cigar and a big toddy of Bour-
bon whiskey."
When the girl had gone, Ambler attempted to
thank the Colonel for his support and help.
"I could not have done it without your help, Col-
onel," the young man said humbly. "Mere words
cannot express my gratitude."
"Well, son," said the old gentleman, "I reckon
your daddy is looking down on us tonight and bless-
ing us both. I never did tell you that I promised him
on the day he died, I would help you win the Gov-
ernorship of the State. He was a mighty fine man
and he was my friend. He had two ambitions. He


114
LOOT
has been arranged' after the European manner," she
quoted bitterly.
Ambler broke in pleadingly, but Julia kept on.
"I am to be the spoils in a political trade—you
win the Governorship and take me with it as part
of the bargain," she said.
"But I love you—I worship you," said Ambler.
"You don't," said Julia Steele, her voice rising.
"It's a lie. You have to be prompted by my father
to propose to me—I hate you. I loathe you!"
She ran toward the house, Ambler in hot pursuit.
She gained the front door and slammed it in his face.
"But, Julia darling, I love you," said the Gover-
nor-to-be.
"I hate you," said Julia distinctly from behind the
door. "I hope I never see you again." And she was
gone.
Stumbling home to his cabin, crushed in spirit,
Ambler came on a huddled form on the porch of his
home. It was Ambrose Pierce, quite drunk.
"Wuxtry edition," mumbled Pierce thickly. "All
about the election, mister. I came out in taxicab to
give you all the latest news. All the Steele candi-
dates elected, including Ambler and Congressman
Jenkins and old Governor Whash His Name—make9
no difference."
He proffered Ambler a bundle of copies of the
Jeffersonville American, yet wet with ink from the
press.


LOOT
117
Forrest of Cheatham, whom he had picked tentative-
ly as the administration candidate for Speaker of
the Senate, avoided giving a direct answer when
Ambler asked his cooperation in an effort to save the
Falls, and the Governor-elect sensed that the power
company had done its work well.
Before Ambler, as he worked in his suite at the
Hotel Patrick Henry and his law office at Steeleville,
arose constantly the face of Julia Steele. The old
Colonel had made no reference to the affair of elec-
tion night, and Ambler doubted whether the girl had
ever told him of its climax. But somehow the old
gentleman had sensed the strained relations between
the two. Ambler was desperately unhappy. He
worked sixteen and eighteen hours a day on his pro-
gram for the Legislature to drown his memories, but
the girl's face would not down. It came to him not
in the manner of other days with laughing brown
eyes, vivid cheeks and inviting lips, but with tears of
anger in the deep pools of brown and lips so tightly
drawn that they seemed an archer's bow-strings
drawn in anger, instead of a Cupid's bow.
On Christmas Eve, Ambler could stand it no long-
er. He threw aside his work, dismissed his secretary
from his office suite in the Hotel Patrick Henry and
rambled through the shopping district of the capitol
city in search of a florist. The tall young man who
was to be the next Governor of the State was recog-
nized by many as he strode along the streets and was
cordially greeted by friends and strangers, but it


LOOT
119
tate, served by the willing hands of young Shad and
other servants who had been with him since child-
hood. He dined in state in the gloomy old dining
room with young Christopher Jenkins, son of the
Congressman, whom the Governor-elect was consid-
ering as the best bet for Speaker of the House and
old Senator Forrest, who was still noncommital on
Harpeth Falls development. But Jenkins was frank
in his opposition to any movement that would dam-
age the beauty of the falls and on the instant Ambler
picked him in his mind as the logical candidate for
the House Speakership for the administration to sup-
port.
In the morning Ambler felt like a boy, as he
dressed in the great old bedroom which his father
used to occupy. Analyzing his feelings, he found
himself in the frame of mind of the small boy on
Christmas morning who hurriedly dresses to go
downstairs to see what Santa Claus had brought him.
But his feeling was built entirely, he found, on his
coming interview with the woman he loved.
Downstairs the servants had made Christmas cheer
as best they could without the guiding hand of a
woman in the house. Ambler found that literally
thousands of gifts had come to him from all over the
State, most of them from persons who were strangers
to him. There were scores of turkeys, country hams,
smoked country sausage, boxes of cigars, several
quarts of whiskey and other gifts of every descrip-
tion.
Ambler waited with impatience until noon. Then


120
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he walked across the plantation to the Steele home.
There was a gay company for dinner, and he was
greeted with warmth. Governor Pitts was regaling
them with stories of Christmas days in the Old South,
while a dozen other distinguished guests, including
several members of the State's congressional dele-
gation, crowded around. There was a genial air of
good cheer about the stately old house, as Shad
bustled about serving highballs, cocktails, and the
lowly country toddy.
The Colonel's Christmas dinners were traditional
in the State. They smacked of the old days when
the South was a free liver and easy spender—ante-
bellum days, before the fields were plowed by shot
and shell.
This one fairly made the great table groan. There
was a huge turkey stuffed with chestnuts, old country
ham baked in wine and brown sugar, venison with
currant jelly, blazing plum pudding with rum sauce,
corn pone, beaten biscuits, candied yams, salsify,
roast pig, spiced round, a dozen other dishes; and,
as a special dish for Governor Pitts, always the com-
moner even in his food, a 'possum browned to a turn
and giving forth zestful odors. Wine from the Col-
onel's fine old cellar was served with each course. At
the end there were coffee and liquors.
Julia Steele had greeted Ambler with cordiality,
but a certain reserve. He was not seated near her dur-
ing the meal and had no chance to talk with her.
When the guests came back to the huge log fire in the
living room, Julia had disappeared before Ambler's


122
LOOT
"But why—?" broke in Ambler. But she would
not be interrupted.
"Don't you see?" she said. "You are merely a
cog in a political machine. You are not a free agent.
Everything is planned for you. Defy the organiza-
tion in the Legislature and it will crush you. Why,
you know Harpeth Falls ought to be saved—you
know every woman voter in the State would support
you on it—but you don't dare go against their
wishes—you don't dare! When I marry I want a man
who is his own man—his own boss."
"Don't you love me, Julia?" he asked brokenly.
But she hung her head and would not answer.
It filled him with white-hot rage such as he had
never known before. It was cruel to receive injustice
from the woman he loved above all others. He took
a step nearer to her, then retreated.
"Very well," he said. "Have it your way—have it
any way you please. But never for an instant since
the power interests brought it up at the first confer-
ence have I agreed to the looting of Harpeth Falls.
And, by God, I'll stop it. But if your heart drives
you back to me, you'll come of your own accord to
beg forgiveness for your injustice. That's all, and
I'm sorry."
He stumbled back to the gay living room, to sit
numbly for an hour until he could decently excuse
himself. Governor Pitts hurried Julia off to a Christ-
mas tree entertainment to be given by the convicts at
the main State prison, one of her pet charities. Am-
bler went home, hating Pitts, hating himself, hating


LOOT
123
his party and the honors it had bestowed upon him.
But by night he snapped out of it and set about
coldly and calculatingly to save Harpeth Falls. If
they wanted war, they could have war—war without
quarter—war to the knife! He'd show the world he
was his own man!


LOOT
125
always tolerant, but with Judge Griffin and the others
he could not reason. They wanted Harpeth Falls
because it was immensely profitable, and they would
brook no interference with their plans.
But that night the Colonel, ordered by his physi-
cian to Hot Springs for the cure, called a final con-
ference on legislative matters and patronage.
Propped up in a huge four-poster bed at Travel-
er's Rest, Colonel Steele gathered Ambler, Griffin,
Governor Pitts, Majors, Smith, Kelly and all the
other cogs in the Steele machine around him.
To their demands for patronage and legislation,
Ambler readily agreed in the main. He agreed to
the reappointment of practically all the State offi-
cials of the Pitts administration with only a few
changes, and those were suggested by Colonel Steele
himself. Here and there a State employe was to be
dropped, to make way for another with more politi-
cal influence. The reelection by the Legislature of
the State Treasurer, Secretary of State and Comptrol-
ler was agreed on without dissent. No changes at all
were to be made in the State Highway Department,
and this point was stressed more than any other. The
Adjutant General was to be named by the American
Legion convention, which was to meet shortly.
Judge Griffin even had a suggestion of a suitable
appointee as the Governor's secretary, but to this Am-
bler laughingly demurred. His secretary, he said, was
more of a personal than a political matter. Secretly,
he had visions of his office operations being subjected


LOOT
127
your wishes," said Judge Griffin, and the others as-
sented readily. Too readily, Ambler thought after-
wards in the light of later events.
Nothing was said about Harpeth Falls until Am-
bler was ready to leave. Then Judge Griffin re-
marked:
"Mr. Ambler, I had hoped you would come
around to our way of thinking on the falls matter,
but I understand you are still obdurate. I am still
hopeful that you'll see the justice of our position.
But if you cannot do so, I want to assure you that
we'll still be good friends. I wish your administra-
tion the best of success."
Ambler was grateful to the old judge and ex-
pressed his appreciation of this generous attitude.
Later he was to learn that this was also too easy a
victory.
For what happened in the next few weeks, Ambler
at first acquitted Colonel Steele. The old gentleman
was carried away that night to Hot Springs, attended
by Julia and old Shad, and Ambler did not credit him
with knowing of the broken faith which shortly came
to light not only in regard to Flippen's candidacy but
also on Harpeth Falls.
It was Ambrose Pierce, in fact, who discovered it
first. He seemed to have an uncanny faculty of
guessing political situations. On the eve of the gath-
ering of the Legislature, Pierce reported that Jen-
kins, the administration candidate for Speaker of the
House, would have opposition. Ambler had been
counting that race won without trouble and had in


128
LOOT
fact plunged into the preparation of his inaugural
address.
"Flippen had been running quietly all along,"
Pierce reported. "He is controlled by Judge Griffin,
and he doesn't intend to withdraw even though you
have vetoed his candidacy. I got that from a member
of the House who had drunk too much corn whiskey.
But we can get busy and put Jenkins over all right."
Pierce, now armed with the prestige of the pub-
lic announcement that he was to be the new Gover-
nor's secretary, busied himself meeting the incom-
ing members of the Legislature. To them he ex-
plained simply that the new Governor desired Jen-
kins as Speaker of the House and many of them
signed a pledge at once that bound them to vote for
Jenkins in the House caucus.
To Ambler's amazement, Pierce had the active
support in this work of the ox-like Kelly.
"I don't know whether Flippen is running as Grif-
fin's candidate or not," said that worthy, "but Col-
onel Steele didn't tell me to support Flippen and I
promised you I would support Jenkins, so here I
am."
The surprise on Ambler's face was so plain that
Kelly was impelled to explain further. He said:
"It ain't the politicians who break their word in
politics—it's the business men in politics, like Judge
Griffin."
With the aid of Pierce and Kelly, the Ambler ad-
ministration, though not yet in power, was within
three votes of the thirty-six necessary to nominate the


LOOT
129
speaker—thirty-three votes signed. But it seemed
impossible to get any more votes.
"Put this in my hands, and agree to do the few
simple things that I'll tell you about afterwards, and
I'll guarantee to get it settled tonight," Kelly pro-
posed.
Pierce was all for agreeing, but both Jenkins and
Ambler held back. How, they asked, could it be
done?
"We'll get 'em from Flippen's ranks," explained
Kelly. "And if we don't get 'em, we're lost."
It ended by Ambler putting the matter entirely
in the capable hands of Kelly and Pierce. His con-
science warned him that he would have to trade away
some governmental favor for the votes, but his po-
litical judgment told him that it was necessary. If he
did not control the House he was lost. v
In two hours the race was ended and Jenkins had
won it hours in advance of the caucus. The morning
newspapers carried Flippen's withdrawal, coupled
with a veiled attack on the new administration as be-
ing too political in its operations. It was not until
later that Ambler learned that one vote cost the chair-
manship of the committee on enrolled bills, one of the
few chairmanships carrying compensation j another
cost a pardon for a particularly brutal murderer and
the price of the other was a State job for a relative
of a member of the Legislature. Ambler was dis-
gusted, but he grudgingly paid off the political debts.
The Legislature met with the usual fanfare of
trumpets early in January. Statesmen from the tall


132
LOOT
three-dam bill to be in the majority in the Senate,
but he was surprised at their unexpected strength in
the House also. At times also, he sensed, Harpeth
Falls was really the trouble when some member gave
him a different reason for it. He was sure of this
diagnosis, when one member from a rural section in-
formed him that he was against his proposal to abol-
ish the State tax on land on the grounds that it would
irritate the farmers who would regard it as charity.
Strangely enough, he found that members of the op-
position party to a man were for his own policy to-
wards Harpeth Falls but he analyzed this as merely
a political move to drive a wedge between the Gover-
nor and the Steele machine. His own party was badly
divided and he soon found that he would need the
support of the opposition. Indeed, a preliminary
check showed that a majority of his own party was
for the three-dam bill in both houses.
So pressed was he by visitors of all sorts, that in-
auguration day was on him scarcely before he had
finished the inaugural address and given advance
copies to Pierce for distribution to the reporters.
The inauguration was a great social as well as po-
litical event. It was held that year in the vaulted
chamber of the House of Representatives, amid gay
decorations. It had a military atmosphere as well, for
the half a hundred colonels and officers on Ambler's
staff participated, and a full company of National
Guardsmen stood outside the great doors under the
command of the resigning Adjutant General, aided
by Robert E. Lee Fitzgerald, whose commission as


CHAPTER XI
Pierce, wise in the ways of legislative bodies,
knew that the Legislature was friendly to the new
Governor because of the patronage he had to dis-
pense, if nothing more, but that in time it would
get all it could out of him and seek greener pastures.
In a word, legislative bodies in time usually get
crossed with the executive. So he worked like a Tro-
jan to get the Ambler program safely through the
Legislative hoppers.
The natural inertia of such bodies seemed to be
the greatest difficulty. The Houses did not meet un-
til noon and were in session only an hour or two
daily. The local bills affecting bond issues, public
improvements, roads and schools and other matters
seemed to clog the whole session, though they were
passed always without roll calls, and at the behest
solely of the delegations from the counties affected.
The solons stopped gleefully to accept all invitations
to dine in a body, visited by all State institutions and
hospitals whenever invited by thrifty superintend-
ents who saw opportunity of securing larger appro-
priations and knocked off work at every opportunity
to listen to funny speeches or spread eagle oratory.
In a week Ambler was almost in a frenzy. All of
his bills had been introduced but none had gotten
136


LOOT
137
further than second reading. He sadly missed Col-
onel Steele who wrote that he was not doing so
well at Hot Springs and said his physician had or-
dered him to take another three weeks' treatment of
twenty-one baths. There was still no word from
Julia. Kelly worked as best he could, but Ambler
secretly doubted whether the other satraps of the
Steele machine were really helping much, though
they protested they were doing all they could.
"I don't like the atmosphere around here," Pierce
protested daily. "It's like playing poker with a cold
deck, the cards stacked against you. Somebody is
gumming up the works and I'd give a pretty to know
who he is—old Griffin, I suspect."
Then Ambler sent a message to the Houses po-
litely calling attention to his program and suggest-
ing speed. It was not a politic message and it did the
administration more harm than good. In each House
there were several speeches defending the legislative
branch against the aspersions of the executive. It was
another week before the ruffled feelings had been
smoothed down.
And it did not soothe the young Governor's feel-
ings at all when the Legislature suddenly took up and
passed in rapid fire order every piece of legislation
demanded by the Steele machine in the Southern
Club conference before he became Governor, begin-
ning with the bond issue, and leaving high and dry
his own pet measures to which the machine had
agreed, especially the repeal of the State tax on land,
and its companion measure to make up the loss of


138
LOOT
this revenue by a tax on luxuries. Ambler felt sud-
denly like a small boy who had paid for candy and
then been unable to obtain it. In fact, it infuriated
him.
In a cold rage he sent for both Speakers, together
with the administration leaders in both Houses and
the heads of the most important committees.
"Have these administration bills set for special
order and pass them, or, by God, I'll turn the State
upside down," he raged. "If you don't pass thes"e
bills, I'll resign my office and explain to the people
exactly why I did."
The threat threw many of the leaders into a rage,
but it was effective. Under the whip and spur of the
Governor's office they prodded their Houses into
setting the bills for special order one week hence.
But next day the secret opposition to the Governor
came into the open. Judge Griffin, suave as usual,
called on the Governor, and was not long about
stating his business.
"Agree to the passage of the three-dam bill for
Harpeth Falls and we'll get behind your land tax
repeal and your luxury tax bills," was the gist of
what he had to say after an hour's palaver.
"I'll agree to nothing of the sort," stormed Am-
bler. "This is a rank hold-up. I have already agreed
to too much."
"Very well," replied Judge Griffin, "then this is
war. We'll defeat every administration measure
left."
For a week, nothing came of it. Then on the eve


LOOT
139
of the day for consideration of the land tax appeal
legislation, the blow fell.
It fell at the caucus called for the purpose of
nominating the majority party candidates for Secre-
tary of State, Treasurer and Comptroller, none of
whom had any opposition. For this reason no special
attention was paid to the caucus, and not even Pierce's
quick wit noted that the party solons were called "to
transact any other business that might come before
them."
The old officers renominated, the caucus proceeded
to other business. With only three-fourths of the
party members present for the routine of renominat-
ing them, Representative Flippen surrendered his
seat as chairman of the caucus and from the floor pre-
sented a resolution pledging the party to vote as a unit
for the three-dam bill for Harpeth Falls. Never be-
fore had such been known, as a caucus on legislation.
There was an uproar in the hall, so Ambler learned
with an impending sense of disaster later that night,
when the belated Pierce heard of the proceedings too
late to stop them.
The motion was hotly contested and Speaker Jen-
kins of the House came to blows with Flippen.
"That is broken faith," said Jenkins.
"That's a lie," squealed Flippen, and they were
fighting in a moment. His loyalty to the young Gov-
ernor blurring his judgment, Jenkins knocked Flip-
pen down. The latter pulled out a knife and was ad-
vancing on the young Speaker when he was over-
powered and disarmed.


140
LOOT
After an hour of wild speeches, the opponents of
the bill attempted to leave the hall with Jenkins at
their head. But the other side was too well organ-
ized and had locked the doors. As they battered at
the doors, the votes of the little group were counted
as against the motion and Flippen, back in the chair,
ruled that the resolution had been adopted.
"It is the sense of this party caucus," he declared,
"that the majority in the House and Senate are
pledged to vote for the passage of \he so-called
three-dam bill for Harpeth Falls." And so the mat-
ter ended for the night.
When he came down to his office next day Ambler
found Kelly waiting for him.
"See here," said that practical chap, "we're in
trouble sure enough now. We'd better get Colonel
Steele back to straighten this thing out, if we can."
"Go to Hot Springs this morning," said the Gov-
ernor with a fighting ring in his voice, "and bring
the Colonel back if he can possibly travel. Just tell
him I need him badly." Kelly was off at once.
But he had hardly gotten out of town before the
triumphant Griffin forces called up the three-dam
bill in both Houses and passed it. In an hour it lay on
the Governor's desk for his signature. Under the
Constitution he had ten days to either sign it or dis-
approve it. He could never make a veto stick unless
he got better control of the Legislature, he realized
sadly.
He could go after the Legislature to enact his
tax reform bills and he did so in good earnest. By


142
LOOT
There was a burst of applause that echoed and
thundered in the great chamber.
And then, name by name, Ambler read the list of
Senators and Representatives who served rural con-
stituencies. It was a bold thing to do, this calling
legislators by name, but the profound hush that
greeted it told the Governor that he was winning.
"What will you gentlemen tell your people when
you go home if you vote against these bills?" he
asked. "What excuse can you offer for voting against
their hopes and aspirations? Gentlemen, there is but
one course to pursue and that is the course of right-
eousness. Today we have seen the triumph of a great
lobby. To your faces I tell you that the Harpeth
Falls lobby used liquor, money and women to influ-
ence this Legislature. What can you say to your home
folks when you vote for a power grab and vote
against a tax reform bill? Who is speaking today for
the people of this State? Which will you serve?"
There were angry murmurs from some parts of
the hall but these were drowned out in cheers. There
were cries of "vote, vote, let's vote; we're with you,
Governor," from all parts of the hall.
Scarcely had Governor Ambler returned to his of-
fice when Pierce sent word that the Houses were get-
ting ready to vote and the Governor had paced the
floor only a few minutes when Pierce appeared with
the two roll calls in his hands. "We've won," he said
smilingly, "not much majority—barely a constitu-
tional majority in the Senate—but enough in both
houses."


146
LOOT
on it could be deferred until after the customary re-
cess of the Legislature which would give the power
lobbyists time to work.
"Go get Griffin here," directed the Colonel, and
Flippen trotted off to carry the word to the power
chief.
"Seems like things got in sort of a jam, Judge,"
said the Colonel to Griffin.
"It's all the fault of that whipsnapper, the Gov-
ernor," said the Judge heatedly. "He was too stub-
born to straighten it out, or compromise. He
wouldn't have had any trouble if he had agreed to
the three-dam bill."
"Your company won't agree to the two-dam bill
even as a last resort?" mildly asked the Colonel.
"Colonel," said Griffin earnestly, "our engineers
say a two-dam development at Harpeth Falls is im-
possible—as well have nothing as only two dams.
They wouldn't create enough power to justify the
construction of the transmission lines. We've gotten
in such shape now that I doubt whether we could
pass the two-dam bill, anyway. It's either the three-
dam bill or nothing, I'm afraid."
The men sat silent for a moment, then Griffin
burst out:
"If Ambler fails us on this—if he does get the
House to sustain his fool veto, we'll wreck the whole
organization—we'll blow it sky high—why, Ambler
couldn't have been elected but for us last summer—
we bore the burden of it and we'll ruin the Steele
organization from top to bottom!"


LOOT
147
"Steady there, my friend," said the Colonel with
a glint of anger in his eyes; "I can handle this situa-
tion, but if you don't trust me to do so, then go
ahead and have it your own way. But don't come
threatening me. I don't bluff worth a cent."
Griffin apologized. Then he outlined his services
to the Steele organization and ended with a plea that
the Colonel solve the tangle.
"I'm not much good at untying Gordian knots,"
said the Colonel, "but maybe I can cut it. I'll try,"
and with that the power attorney had to be content.
Then for the first time since his return he went
to see Governor Ambler.
The Governor welcomed him as a condemned man
welcomes a reprieve. He told him his troubles for
hours and leaned on his sage advice. It appeared
finally that there was little of his problem left except
the passage of the legislation starting the constitu-
tional amendment reclassifying property for taxation
on its tortuous way to a popular referendum, a few
odds and ends of legislation which had been prom-
ised the people in Ambler's campaign and then—the
Harpeth Falls bill. The thick bill, passed by both
Houses and signed by the Speakers, lay on the desk
before them. But the Colonel was not ready to talk
about it yet.
The constitutional amendment, he pointed out,
would be difficult of passage, as it required three
readings in both Houses and on each reading a rec-
ord vote which must show a two-thirds majority in
each House. Thus the Constitution safeguards itself


148
LOOT
against changes, and after that the legislation has to
run the gauntlet of a popular referendum.
"But we'll see what can be done," said the Colonel
easily. He called in Pierce and to him dictated a
brief statement for the press. It was such a statement,
Ambler thought afterwards, when he had analyzed
it, as one farmer might give to another upon his re-
turn from a trip to the West or to some far places—
a neighborly, folksy sort of statement.
"I am glad to be back," ran the statement. "I had
a delightful journey and am improved in health, but
there isn't another State like ours.
"I am delighted to hear that the Legislature has
made such progress. The repeal of the State tax on
land was one of the most progressive steps our State
has ever made. The bill for the construction of re-
mote rural roads through the use of a small fraction
of the gasoline tax was also a forward step.
"I am wondering why the Legislature does not
speedily avail itself of the privilege of adopting the
constitutional amendment resolution and submitting
it to a vote of the people at the next regular election.
I am sure that rural constituencies will endorse this,
as soon as its provisions are thoroughly explained. It
will enable the State to classify property for taxa-
tion according to the profit such property returns. It
is obviously unfair to tax a farm, which shows little
or no profit, at the same rate as a city factory, which
is making its owners rich. As a farmer, I endorse this
legislation whole-heartedly."
Not much to that statement, thought Ambler with


CHAPTER XIII
Next day everything went wrong in the Gover-
nor's office, as Ambler worked feverishly to line up
his strength in the House to sustain his veto. He
could not find young Shad, whom he had been using
as a messenger in the executive offices. He suspected
that Pierce had been drinking too much the night
before. He found Speaker Jenkins of the House dis-
couraged over the prospect, and he heard vague talk
of a resolution of censure in the Senate.
But Ambler faced his situation with undaunted
heart. If he was to lose everything, he had just as
well go down with flying flags and bands playing. If
the veto should be sustained in either House the bill
would be killed, but in killing it he would deliver a
crushing blow to the Steele machine, which could
not survive without power trust support. If the bill
was passed over his veto in both Houses, it would
mean virtually the end of the Ambler administration
or at least the crippling of the Ambler power and the
diminishing of the Ambler tradition so carefully built
up in the summer primary of the preceding year. In
his discouragement, the sweet face of Julia Steele
rose before him and on the impulse of the moment
he put in a long distance call for her. She was not at
152


LOOT
1S3
home, old Shad informed him with regret in his
shaky old voice, and Ambler wondered how she felt
towards him, now that he had defied his political
creator and the thunderbolts were hurling around
him.
While Pierce was rallying the leaders in the Legis-
lature that were still loyal, Ambler mapped out his
plan of campaign. He would make only a nominal
fight in the Senate to have his veto sustained because
a fight there was hopeless, but he would throw into
the House fight every ounce of his strength.
Waiting for the legislators for whom he had sent
to gather in his office, Ambler idly picked up the
Jeffersonville American. It had a front page edito-
rial obviously and on its face not in the style of hon-
est old Daniel Graham, which was a veiled attack on
Ambler and a plea for the passage of the Harpeth
Falls bill over the Governor's threatened veto as a
means of speeding up the industrialization of the
State. But what was more startling, the paper had
also an interview with Wilbur Padgett, only recently
recommissioned as State Commissioner of Conserva-
tion, giving it as his opinion that the three-dam bill
for Harpeth Falls would not in fact ruin the beauty
of the falls at all. Here was open treason. The Gov-
ernor sent for Padgett with black fury in his heart.
The Commissioner came breathlessly.
"Does this interview quote you correctly?" asked
Ambler. The man studied it with shaking fingers.
"Why—er, no, Governor," he said. "What I said
was misunderstood."


154
LOOT
"Correct it by night, or let me have your resig-
nation," demanded the Governor coldly. "My ap-
pointees are either for me or against me in this
fight."
No correction was made. Padgett tendered his
resignation. Ambler learned that a plan was afoot to
strip him of his appointive and removal powers and
the Steele organization had induced the Commission-
er to resign on the promise of reappointment soon at
a better salary. The man was simply sacrificed for
nothing. The plan could never mature.
But the incident had a definitely good effect on
the morale of the Ambler administration and some
of the Governor's recent appointees gathered around
to lend what aid they could.
After his conference with his leaders Ambler de-
termined to play politics to the limit. The devil
could only be fought with fire and if Colonel Steele's
organization thought the Governor was too high-
minded not to fight them with every weapon he had,
then he'd show them.
"We've got to get some recruits from the Steele
side in the House," Pierce kept complaining. "Let's
send for that skunk Flippen and buy him off."
Ambler's heart revolted at the idea, but in the end
he masked his disgust and sent for Flippen. The
legislator would not come to the executive offices and
they met secretly in Ambler's quarters at the Hotel
Patrick Henry.
Flippen soon revealed that he had a grievance
against the Steele organization, or perhaps it was only


LOOT
I5S
a fancied grievance trumped up to quiet whatever
conscience he had left to enable him to make a trade
with the Governor. He felt that the machine had
sidetracked him too easily in the fight for the Speak-
ership and he was willing to join the man who had
been the cause of that sidetracking. Besides, he had
already gotten his price—whatever it was—from the
Griffin forces when he had voted to pass the three-
dam bill, and now his greedy fingers clutched for
more.
Even as they talked, the muffled shouts of news-
boys crying an extra edition of the newspapers floated
up from the din of the traffic in the street below. "All
about the Senate passing Harpeth Falls bill over the
Governor's veto," the boys were chanting.
Both heard it clearly and Flippen said, licking his
thin lips greedily:
"You need help badly, Governor."
"How many votes do you control in the House?"
asked 'Ambler.
"Eleven for sure in one bloc and maybe two or
three more," said Flippen. "Eleven will be just
enough for you to win with—just enough to keep
from passing the bill over your veto."
"You have a son who is a deputy game warden
in the Department of Conservation, I hear," said
Ambler tentatively. "I hear good reports of him."
The man was touched. His son was evidently his
one weakness and his tone rang with sincerity.
"That boy's got book-learning," he said with pride.
"I sent him to college. He's just a young fellow—


LOOT
157
David Farragut Flippen as Commissioner of Con-
servation and directing him to take office at once.
Even if the Senate refused to confirm him, he
thought grimly, it could not take action before Flip-
pen made good on his bargain on the morrow when
the House met.
They shook hands on it and Pierce said gleefully:
"We've licked 'em again, Chief; they can't pass the
Harpeth Falls bill over your veto."
Then his jaw dropped and he looked over Am-
bler's shoulder in blank amazement. Flippen chucked
his tongue in consternation and disappeared in a side
door leading to the secretary's office. Pierce followed
him.
Ambler turned slowly. Framed in the doorway,
leaning on his cane as Jove might poise cn a thunder-
bolt from high Olympus, stood Colonel Gideon
Wade Steele, his mouth drawn in a grim line, his
eyes as steely blue as an icicle from the capitol eaves
outside. Ambler almost quailed before the old gen-
tleman, standing there in the door wearing a look
more terrible than an army with banners.


LOOT
you'd bite the hand that fed you. I yielded to senti-
ment—I thought there was something between you
and Julia—I wanted to make her happy"
"Leave her out of it," cried Ambler. "She hates
me."
Colonel Steele heard this statement in mild sur-
prise.
"You have traded with my friends to make them
betray me," he said.
"But not before you had used your friends to be-
tray me, or had permitted it to be done," said Am-
bler sturdily. "We had a thorough understanding
about the Harpeth Falls bill. I told you from the
first that I'd never agree to more than two dams."
"It was my mistake ever to trust you," said the
Colonel. "You—a foolish sentimentalist who lets a
few drops of water over a falls keep the State from
having the electric power that is its lif eblood. If you
make this veto stick in the House by your political
manipulation you will destroy my organization and
ruin me—ruin me in my old age."
"And if this bill passes, I had just as well resign
as Governor," said Ambler in an agonized voice.
"Why, can't you see that I have just as much at
stake as you do? Why must I surrender my pledged
word, my honor, to a political machine? I have given
you and your organization everything it asked—
I have turned over to them every office in the capi-
tol—I have signed bills that I knew were merely en-
abling acts for graft and plunder."
Ambler's voice was rising in passion.


160
LOOT
"I have asked only a few laws which the people
of this State were entitled to a decade or more ago—
laws that other progressive States have. That has been
the price of my agreement to the looting of the
State—may God forgive me for being so blinded by
my ambition!"
He put his head down on his desk to hide the
tears that blinded him—tears of anger and regret.
"Loot, loot, loot," he repeated in a muffled voice.
"My mistake was in thinking that I could control
a fool," said Colonel Steele savagely. "Call off Flip-
pen and his bloc of men in the house, let us pass this
bill over your veto, or, by God, we'll break you—
ruin you"
His voice was rising to a shriek, his face distorted
with rage, when there came an unexpected interrup-
tion.
At the door from Pierce's office there was fum-
bling and scratching, as when a blind old man seeks
the door knob.
"Get back, old man," came the muffled voice of
Pierce. "You can't go in there. The Governor's busy."
"De kunnel, suh," came a voice. "Oh, my Gawd,
I is got to see the kunnel—". It broke into a sob.
Ambler ran to the door and threw it open. Old
Shad, his face a pasty white with fear over the ebony,
stood, with wringing hands, whimpering like a
whipped dog.
"Oh, kunnel, kunnel, suh," cried the old man.
"Dey's got young Shad—dey's got him f er sho'. Git
him out, kunnel."


LOOT
161
The old man dropped on his knees before the
Colonel's chair.
"Oh, kunnel, kunnel," he said in a heart-broken
voice.
"Get up, Uncle Shad," said Ambler gently. "Tell
us what is the matter. Sit down here."
Weak and trembling, the old negro dropped into a
chair.
"He's in jail—my baby boy—he's in jail," sobbed
old Shad. "Dey's got him in jail at Cheatham and
dey's a mob a-forming—Oh, kunnel, you can do
anything in dis yeah State—save my baby, kunnel."
"Here, Pierce," called Ambler, "Get the sheriff
at Cheatham on the wire quick. Find out about young
Shad. I missed him this morning."
Under the urging of the Colonel and the Gover-
nor, Shad told the story as coherently as he could.
He had heard from a negro lodge brother that young
Shad was in trouble in Cheatham. He had gotten
Miss Julia to drive him over in her roadster. He had
gone to the jail, but the sheriff had refused to let
him see the younger negro.
"He's in for attempted rape, old nigger," the
sheriff had said, "and nobody can see him." But Miss
Julia had appeared from the car, and a word from
her had enabled the old man to see his son.
Young Shad had told him that he had received a
telephone call at the Governor's office late on the
preceding afternoon from a woman who said she had
a message from Governor Ambler. This message di-


CHAPTER XV
The enormity of his decision smote the Governor
with full force when the debonair and khakied figure
of his new Adjutant General, Robert E. Lee Fitz-
gerald, presented itself before him in a few minutes
in answer to his ring. He could go along peaceably
and surely beat the Harpeth Falls bill in the House
tomorrow. He could resist and cause no end of
trouble. He put the thought away sharply.
General Fitzgerald drew himself up at the door
with a snappy salute.
"What is it, Chief?" he smiled. "I'm ready for a
fight or a frolic."
"I'm afraid it's a fight this time," said Ambler
gloomily, as he explained. The tense atmosphere of
the room dispelled the Adjutant General's light
mood at once and his face took on a fighting quality.
"We'd better mobilize two companies of the
National Guard from Jeffersonville then," suggested
the military man crisply. "In case we should need
them, we can get to Jeffersonville in an hour by using
army trucks and we can carry machine guns, too. I'll
make the arrangements," and he was off like a shot.
In the stillness of dusk a few minutes later, Ambler
heard the sharp notes of a bugle.
168


LOOT
169
It had not died on the air before the telephone
jangled and Pierce was speaking from Cheatham.
The secretary talked in a low voice from near the
mouthpiece of the phone, as though in danger of be-
ing overheard.
"Listen, Chief," said Pierce. "This thing is rotten.
We all know the Anniston girl is a lady of joy,
utterly without character, but these country folks
don't know it. Her reputation was good when she
used to live here years ago. The feeling here is very
bad against Shad and against you, even, because he
was your chauffeur and driving your car at the time.
Better be careful. If you could get Colonel Steele to
come here and talk to just a few men of influence,
we could avoid trouble."
"I am unwilling to ask Colonel Steele to go to
Cheatham to quell the disturbance," said Ambler
frigidly for the benefit of the old Colonel who still
sat near by. "What has the sheriff done to protect
his prisoner?"
"Absolutely nothing," said Pierce bitterly. "The
old sheriff is scared to death. He hasn't sworn in a
man and in my judgment he will turn over the keys
of the jail to the ringleaders of the mob, if a mob
comes."
"Do you think there will be a mob," asked Ambler
hopefully?
"I don't know," said Pierce. "So far, there's only
talk, but you know how prejudiced Cheatham always
has been to negroes and how they are stirred up by
charges of any such crime as this against a woman."


LOOT
171
basement, the yelling of men and the sharp, stinging
notes of a bugle.
Out the window Ambler saw the men piling into
tall army trucks—fifteen of them in a row, each filled
with men in khaki—gay, laughing men on a lark who
might before morning be bloody and stricken. Am-
bler shuddered. He ran back to his office to get his
overcoat. As he put it on Julia stepped up to him.
"Are you—you—you aren't going with them?"
she asked incredulously, old Shad hovering behind
her.
"Yes," said Ambler simply. "Under the Constitu-
tion I am commander-in-chief of the National Guard
of the State. My place is with them, and I am going."
"Julia," called the old Colonel sharply, but the
girl broke out into hysterical sobbing.
"Take care of her, Shad," Ambler called to the
old negro. And he was gone with Fitzgerald to clam-
ber into the front truck with the officers.
But while the motor of the vanguard truck was
spitting and coughing in the cold winter air, there
came a form running from the front door of the
capitol. It was Julia Steele and she climbed into the
truck with Ambler, as the guardsmen cheered.
"You can't go—there may be trouble," said Am-
bler weakly.
"I can go wherever you go," she said proudly. And
she went.
"Let's go, Sergeant," said Fitzgerald, quickly, and
the motorcade moved forward in the wake of a


172
LOOT
squadron of State police and motorcycles, with sirens
shrieking to clear the road.
Through the winter night the trucks lumbered at
a tremendous speed. They were riding, these boys in
khaki, as their fathers had ridden to King's Moun-
tain, to surround Cornwallis, to follow Andrew Jack-
son to New Orleans, behind Marse Robert E. Lee in
Virginia, behind Fighting Joe Wheeler in Cuba,
against the Mexicans with Black Jack Pershing, in
the trenches of France—riding gaily on a high
adventure.
They were riding, thought Ambler, but without
qualm, to his political death. Julia snuggled closer to
him. He was happy for the first time since the night
he was elected.


174
LOOT
Through the streets the trucks lumbered at full
speed, drawing up before the courthouse. The men
piled out, just in the nick of time, for around the
far corner of the square, advancing under torches,
waving sticks and guns, cursing and swaggering, came
the mob!
"Have the men fix their bayonets," whispered
Governor Ambler, "and no shooting unless I give
the word."
At a sharp command from Fitzgerald, the two
companies swung in line and marched into the main
entrance of the courthouse. The jail at Cheatham is
behind the courthouse and the entrance is down the
long hallway immediately in line with the front
entrance to the courthouse.
"Keep your men in this hallway with squads posted
at the other entrance and at the windows," said Am-
bler sharply and in two minutes the courthouse and
jail were effectively guarded.
Down the long hallway Ambler sped to the jail
entrance. The sheriff and two deputies stood behind
the steel doors to the jail, pop-eyed with amazement
at the sudden appearance of the soldiers.
"Quick," said Ambler, "open the door. I want to
speak to young Shad a moment."
"Ye've ruined us—ruined us," said the old sheriff
nervously, as he guided the Governor down the hall-
way to tiers of cells until he came to a dark little hole
where young Shad was confined. The negro was
chained to his bed. He was not the gay minstrel of
the negro quarters, but a badly scared boy.


LOOT
177
Henry Bone. Henry, you run right back to your
wife, this minute, I say."
A roar of laughter went up from the close-packed
ranks of the mob. A thousand men were laughing in
unison.
Mayor Bone clinched his fists in the glare of the
flame from the burning truck.
"If you won't hear me," he shrilled, "then hear
the Rev. Mr. Smith."
He pushed the minister to the center of the little
balcony.
"Let's hear the reverend, boys," shouted a voice,
and the mob was stilled for a moment.
Under the flickering torches the face of the min-
ister shone ghastly white.
"Gentlemen," he said simply, "let us pray."
The minister dropped to his knees.
"Oh, Father," he cried, "forgive them—they
know not what they do—." For five minutes he
prayed, asking divine guidance to the minds of men,
pleading that the leaders would receive a baptism of
mercy. He stopped amid absolute silence.
The mob wavered. But the collective mind of men
is guided often by strange and slight things. There
was a drunken man in the front ranks of the mob
and he shouted in the interlude after the prayer:
"Now I'm ready to hang the nigger!" The effect
of the prayer vanished instantly.
Screaming and shouting, the mob pressed forward
to the great doors of the courthouse. Young Shad


178
LOOT
heard the shout in his cell and got down beside his
bed to pray.
"Stop!" boomed a voice and the leaders of the
mob looked upward again, their feet on the steps of
the courthouse. It is in such a voice that the world's
leadership speaks in every crisis.
"Gentlemen," went the voice, carrying itself easily
to the fringes of the mob a half a block away, echo-
ing and re-echoing across the silent square, "I come
to you tonight as the ambassador of law and order.
I am not pleading merely for the life of a trembling
black boy. I am pleading for our State. You are not
about to lynch merely a negro accused of crime—
you are about to lynch the good name of our State!n
"Who is it?" shouted a man in the crowd, wear-
ing a mask.
"I am John Ambler, the Governor of the State,"
returned the voice from the shadows of the balcony.
There was a sound from the mob like the coming
of a cyclone in the distance—it was half cheering and
half muttering, savage oaths, yells of derision, the
snarl of an animal.
"Did you bring the soldiers?" yelled a voice from
the crowd.
"Gentlemen," returned Ambler, "one of your
number has asked me a question. I am going to
answer it in a moment."
"Answer it now, you double crossing ,"
shrieked a member of the mob.
It was impossible for Ambler to go on. There were
howls and cat calls from the mob.


LOOT
179
The Governor stood, pale but determined. If it
cost him only his political future but his very life, he
would speak to them.
When the fury of the mob had spent itself and
lulled for a moment, Ambler went on:
"I have known this accused negro and his father
for many years. They are men of good character and
steady habits. Neither has ever been accused of crime.
I do not believe that young Shad is guilty of this
charge. In facf^I'd stake my life upon it."
"Nigger lover! Nigger lover!" came a chant from
the mob. After that they would not let him proceed.
He stood on the balcony silent while the mob milled
under him. Roaring, it pressed forward again.
"You ask me," he shouted, "if I brought the
soldiers. I did and I alone am responsible for their
being here!"
Then he leaned forward and looked down at the
closed doors below.
"Sergeant, open the doors!"
Before the gleaming eyes of the mob, caught in
the flashlights of the guardsmen packed in the hall-
way below, the great doors swung open, revealing
row on row of troops, their bayonets fixed, a ring
of steel.
"Don't shoot yet!" commanded General Fitz-
gerald. The mob pressed up the steps and across the
wide porch to the entrance. Sticks and stones rained
down on the guardsmen. The faces of the front rank
men were bloody. The mob howled and shrieked, the
front lines pushed forward by those behind. A squad


I
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